Meta Platforms lost about $232 billion in market value in one trading session in February 2022.
On February 3, 2022, Meta Platforms’ shares plunged after the company reported disappointing user figures and warned about competition, advertising pressures, and changes affecting targeted ads. The decline erased approximately $232 billion from its market capitalization in a single day, one of the largest one-day losses ever recorded for a public company at that time.
Meta was then known as Facebook, but it had changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms in October 2021. The name change reflected its stated focus on building the metaverse, even though Facebook remained the name of its flagship social network.
A market-capitalization loss is not the same as money being withdrawn from the company. It represents the lower value investors placed on all outstanding shares after the stock-price collapse. The event illustrated how an earnings report can affect a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars.