{"podcast":{"title":"Charged Alpha Stock Encyclopedia","slug":"charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792","podcast_index_feed_id":7819792,"rss_url":"https://feed.podbean.com/chargedalpha/feed.xml","website_url":"https://chargedalpha.podbean.com","image_url":"https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/22241603/charged_alpha_logo_2048.png","author":"Colton Thomas","episode_count":1630,"summary":"Charged Alpha reviews earnings for each stock in the Russel 1000 every quarter. Each podcast gives thorough analysis, along with an in-depth profile in the beginning of the episode of the company, what they do, how they earn money and what to look for.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-04T06:17:14.359815+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792"},"episode":{"title":"Meta (META): Free Cash Flow Fell 91% While Revenue Grew 28% — Moat or Money Pit?","slug":"meta-meta-free-cash-flow-fell-91-while-revenue-grew-28-moat-or-money-pit","published_at":"2026-07-30T13:28:05+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792/meta-meta-free-cash-flow-fell-91-while-revenue-grew-28-moat-or-money-pit","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792","url":"https://chargedalpha.podbean.com/e/meta-meta-free-cash-flow-fell-91-while-revenue-grew-28-%e2%80%94-moat-or-money-pit/","audio_url":"https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/9se7sud05nkzez1x/audio_8.mp3","summary":"Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) Q2 2026 — Meta Platforms (META) reported Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30, 2026) after the close on July 29: revenue $60.80B, +28% YoY (+27% constant currency), a beat — but diluted EPS fell 13% to $6.18, missing the Street by roughly a dollar, and operating margin collapsed from 43% to 31%. Total costs and expenses rose 55% to $42.03B, including $2.40B of legal charges and $1.18B of severance from the May headcount reduction; R&D alone rose 67% to $21.66B (35.6% of revenue). The number that moved the stock: capex was $31.08B in a single quarter (51% of revenue), leaving free cash flow of just $784M, down 91% from $8.55B. Full-year 2026 capex guidance narrowed to $130-145B (vs $72B spent in 2025), implying $79-94B in H2 alone. Meta bought back ZERO stock in Q2 and zero in H1 (vs $22.9B in H1 2025) and instead issued $24.9B of long-term debt, taking total debt to $83.7B against $90.3B of cash and securities — net cash of only ~$6.6B, down from ~$23B six months ago. Stock comp was $7.66B, +58%, while headcount FELL 1% to 75,472 (~$406k of stock per employee annualized vs ~$254k a year ago). Under-covered angles: US & Canada is 44% of revenue and grew 31.6% with price per ad +20% on only +9% impressions (genuine pricing power), while Asia-Pacific price per ad grew just 1% and Europe just 10% (DMA pay-or-consent drag); Reality Labs lost $4.62B on $431M of revenue, a wider loss than last year and roughly $97B of cumulative operating losses since 2019; and D&A of $6.36B (a ~$25B annual run-rate) must eventually climb toward the $137B annual capex rate — if depreciation were already there, this quarter's $18.8B of operating profit would be about $2B. Our owner-earnings DCF (maintenance capex charged at $45B/yr, stock comp expensed, 10.5%…","meta_description":"Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) Q2 2026 — Meta Platforms (META) reported Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30, 2026) after the close on July 29: revenue $60.80B, +2…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":934,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792/episodes/meta-meta-free-cash-flow-fell-91-while-revenue-grew-28-moat-or-money-pit/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/charged-alpha-stock-encyclopedia-7819792/meta-meta-free-cash-flow-fell-91-while-revenue-grew-28-moat-or-money-pit.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}