The Ratings Game: Meta’s dramatic turnaround continues. Why bulls say the stock surge isn’t done yet.

Also see: Zuck beats Musk at his own game with Meta’s year of efficiency

Meta shares are up nearly 10% in Thursday’s premarket trading after leaping 148% on a year-to-date basis through Wednesday’s close. That surge captures the dramatic change in sentiment on the stock, which about nine months ago was “the most hated name in Internet,” in Shmulik’s view, thanks to out-of-touch spending plans. Now, “it’s hard to find a more beloved stock and cleaner story in the sector.”

Read: Why Snap is ‘running to stay in the same place’ while its rivals thrive

“We make no secret that while we love all our children equally, we’ve always loved Meta the most,” he wrote, while keeping his market-perform rating and lifting his target price to $375 from $350. “Here’s a founder-led company that just finds a way to work through every obstacle in its path, and if Mark hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt yet, we’re not sure what it takes to prove his ability to execute, to pivot, and to deliver.”

SVB Moffett Nathanson’s Michael Nathanson was similarly effusive.

“While Mark Zuckerberg has often been mocked for the massive (and yet to be proven) investments in the Metaverse – which included a new corporate name – many of his other recent actions have worked nicely to turn around META’s narrative on META and the perception of his leadership of the company,” he wrote.

Nathanson said Meta was early to the game in seeking to address Apple Inc.’s privacy-related change, helping to “accelerate the focus of Meta engineers
on rebuilding lost signal that now seems to be paying dividends.”

Don’t miss: Alphabet earnings remind Wall Street of Google’s AI prowess

The latest upbeat sign of Meta’s execution is the company’s recent launch of Threads, developed quickly and by a small team. Though user interest has trailed off, the company is optimistic about it, and Nathanson said its rollout “has opened up a potentially new mass-market product to fuel future revenue growth.”

“Taken all together, these decisions have created one of the most startling turnarounds in company performance and market sentiment that we have ever witnessed,” he continued, while keeping his outperform rating on the stock and boosting his target price to $370 from $295.

Ken Gawrelski of Wells Fargo joined him in the bull camp, beginning his note to clients by saying: “We were wrong on META.”

He upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight, lifting his price target to $389 from $313 and saying that the company’s “blowout” forecast for the third quarter “appears sustainable.”