Stock Market Today, Sept. 21: Meta Surges on Excitement Over Muse Personal AI Agent
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), the social platforms and AI-powered digital advertising company, closed at $741.25, up 11.43%. Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) raised its price target to $796, and investors are watching AI progress ahead of the Meta Connect annual event this week.
Trading volume reached 48.3 million shares, coming in about 157% above its three-month average of 18.8 million shares. Meta Platforms IPO'd in 2012 and has grown 1,839% since going public.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) closed at 7,764, up 1.49%, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) finished at 27,122, up 2.26%. Among interactive media and social networking software peers, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) closed at $354.97, up 1.55%, and Snap (NYSE:SNAP) ended at $5.70, up 3.07%.
What this means for investors
It's been less than two weeks since Meta released its Muse AI personal agent tool, and it's already become one of the most popular interactive AI agents available. It has surpassed OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and others for current downloads in its category on Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS app store, according to reports.
That caught the attention of analysts, including Wells Fargo's Ken Gawrelski. He raised his price target on Meta to $796 per share from $640, hoping that many users will need to opt for a paid subscription due to heavy usage.
Investors in the AI sector have been looking for signs that agentic use cases will emerge to drive returns on investment, and today's download data suggests Meta may be an early beneficiary. Investors will be looking for concrete revenue estimates moving forward, but Meta stock is already reacting to the news.
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Wells Fargo is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Howard Smith has positions in Alphabet and Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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