TL;DR
Meta’s record stock streak looks suspiciously like a manipulated market, letting Zuckerberg cash out while investors chase hype. History suggests this won’t end well.
Story
Meta’s stock soared for 16 days straight, a record for mega-cap companies. But something feels off. It rockets up each morning, then dips, only to magically rise again before closing. Like a pump-and-dump scheme, but slower and more sophisticated.
Zuckerberg’s been selling millions in shares daily. Markets should adjust, but they’re bidding the price up, letting him cash in big. It’s as if logic went out the window. Remember the Metaverse hype? Billions poured in, and now…crickets. This reeks of irrational exuberance—like the dot-com bubble or the 2008 housing craze. People get swept up, ignoring fundamentals until the music stops.
‣ Pump and dump: A scam where the price of an asset (like a stock) is artificially inflated (pumped) through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme “dump” sell their overvalued shares, the price typically falls and investors lose their money.
‣ Irrational exuberance: A term coined by economist Robert Shiller to describe the unsustainable investor enthusiasm that drives asset prices up to levels not supported by fundamentals.
‣ Dot-com bubble: A rapid rise in U.S. technology stock equity valuations fueled by investments in Internet-based companies in the late 1990s. The bubble collapsed in 2000, resulting in a stock market crash and the failure of numerous dot-com companies.
‣ 2008 housing craze: A period of rapid increases in the prices of residential housing in many parts of the world. This unsustainable increase in prices was followed by steep declines, contributing to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Advice
Don’t fall for hype. Research before investing. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember the Metaverse? Exactly.