The 2024 sporting year is packed with highlights. In football, the European Championship and Copa America are scheduled from mid-June. The Summer Olympics will begin in Paris at the end of July. In addition to these top events, the sporting world could experience a spectacular premiere. US billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have agreed to a cage fight. When and where the two will compete in the full-contact sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) remains to be seen. After a verbal exchange of blows at the beginning of August, the potential "Musk vs. Zuckerberg" fight became quieter. Meanwhile, the battle between the duo's social media platforms is entering the next round. At the beginning of July, Zuckerberg's digital company Meta Platforms launched Threads. This created a direct competitor for the discussion platform X (formerly Twitter) operated by Musk. The new service was initially not available in the European Union - apparently due to unresolved regulatory issues.
This is now set to change: According to unconfirmed media reports, Threads will go online in the EU on December 14. The expansion of the microblogging service to the old continent is also supported by a countdown that is currently running down on the European Threads page. However, at the end of October, Mark Zuckerberg gave an initial assessment of the launch of the X counterpart in 100 countries. "There are now almost 100 million monthly active users," explained the Meta boss. He believes Threads can do much more: "I've long been of the opinion that there should be an app for public conversations for a billion people." He would like to see a "slightly more positive" application. Here, Zuckerberg was probably aiming at X, which is characterized by heated political debates, without directly mentioning his rival. All statements can be found in the minutes of the conference call to present the results for Q3 2023.
In the period from July to September, the Group exceeded Wall Street expectations in terms of both revenue and earnings. At the same time, Meta Platforms made a leap in its operating margin. At 40%, it was higher in the quarter under review than it has been for more than two years. While Meta benefited from rising advertising revenue on the revenue side, falling costs also helped profitability. Consequently, the management lowered its planned expenditure for the year as a whole to between USD 87 billion and USD 89 billion. Previously, the target range was USD 88 billion to USD 91 billion. However, the CEO expects costs to rise in 2024. Total expenditure should then be between USD 94 billion and USD 99 billion. "AI will be our biggest area of investment in 2024," explained Zuckerberg. The company, whose Facebook, Instragram, Messenger and WhatsApp portals have more than 3 billion active users every day, is already relying heavily on artificial intelligence. Several corresponding software and hardware solutions were launched in 2023.
Meta Platforms has benefited from the general AI hype on Wall Street. Shortly before the end of the trading year, the share price was up 168%. In the Nasdaq-100 Index, only the chip manufacturer Nvidia, which was also boosted by the AI fantasy, performed better. In view of the steeply rising price chart and the expected cost increases, soft callable barrier reverse convertibles are an investment alternative. Leonteq now offers two variants of this structure on Meta Platforms. The guaranteed coupon on a CHF-denominated BRC is 9% p.a.. This opportunity is partially protected by a barrier of 59% of the initial level. The USD-denominated counterpart yields a quarterly distribution of 12% p.a.. Here, too, the full repayment of the nominal is fixed as long as Meta does not use up the 41% cushion. If the barrier is breached, the investment would be linked to the performance of the underlying asset. Due to the integrated soft callable function, early termination and redemption of both BRCs is possible.
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