Meta Stock Is Having Its Best Month Since 2013. History Says Every 20% Month Has Led to Gains a Year Later.

Shares of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) are up around 30% so far in September as I write this, from $572.34 at the end of August to about $750. With the month ending Wednesday, this puts the stock on track for its largest monthly rise since July 2013.

The rally has taken shares to within around 5% of their record close of $790.00, hit in August 2025. And most of it has come since Sept. 8, when Meta released Muse, a personal artificial intelligence (AI) agent that can book travel, fill out forms, and send emails for its users.

Since its 2012 initial public offering, the stock has climbed 20% or more in a single month nine times, and shares were up 12 months later every time. But does this month look like the others?

Image source: Getty Images.

A perfect record

The nine months aren't spaced evenly. Three came in 2012 and 2013, one each in 2019 and 2020, and four between November 2022 and February 2024.

Twelve months after each, shares were up anywhere from 21% (after January 2019) to 177% (after November 2022). The median one-year gain was around 68%.

It's an impressive record. But I wouldn't rely on it too much. Nine is a small sample, and some of these months overlap. The three that landed between November 2022 and March 2023 were arguably one rebound.

Earlier rallies came with reported numbers

Most of those earlier months came with hard evidence (usually a reported quarter or a big cost decision) that the core business was about to earn more.

The 2012 and 2013 surges tracked the company's shift to mobile ads, when it was still called Facebook. Mobile ads made up around 14% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2012. By the second quarter of 2013, that share was 41%, and the next quarter it hit 49%. The July 2013 jump followed a report showing revenue up 53% year over year.

January 2019 saw a fourth-quarter report with revenue up 30%. And in April 2020, the company said ad revenue had flattened out around the previous year's level in the first three weeks of the month, after a sharp fall in March.

Next came the cost cuts. In November 2022, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced layoffs of over 11,000 employees, around 13% of the workforce. In March 2023, he said the company expected to cut about 10,000 more.

By the fourth quarter of 2023, Meta's operating margin had climbed to 41% from 20% a year before. The February 2024 report for that quarter also brought the company's first dividend and a $50 billion boost in its share buyback authorization.

In short, the market was mostly reacting to numbers it could already see.

Does Muse match the pattern?

This month is different. It came between earnings reports, and the main evidence behind it is app downloads.

Muse became the top free app on Apple's U.S. App Store and had over 2.5 million downloads in its first two weeks, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. Shares surged over 11% on Monday, Sept. 21, amid the buzz. And at its Connect event this week, Meta said Muse is coming to its AI glasses.

The downloads are a promising start, of course, but they aren't revenue. Muse is free for most of what users need, with subscription plans for those who want to do more. At Connect, Zuckerberg said Meta expects to make money over time by taking a small fee from the transactions Muse completes.

Meta also says Muse doesn't share a user's chats or data with its ad systems. So unlike the mobile shift or the cost cuts, it doesn't feed straight into the advertising business that produced around 98% of Meta's second-quarter revenue.

The ads business is still growing quickly. But it's slowing. Sales rose 28% year over year in the April-to-June quarter, below the 33% rate from January through March. And management's forecast for the third quarter implies growth somewhere between 19% and 25%. Second-quarter earnings per share also dropped 13% as costs and expenses jumped 55%, partly from legal and severance charges.

Is this month like the ones before it? Only partly. The core business is strong. And at around 22 times 2027 earnings estimates, the stock looks reasonably priced for a company growing revenue so fast.

But most of the earlier 20% months came with reported results or big cost decisions behind them. This one relies mainly on a product whose revenue hasn't shown up in Meta's results yet.

I'd still consider buying shares here -- mostly for the ads business, with the historical record as a small tailwind. Whether Muse becomes a meaningful revenue line is something investors likely won't know for a while.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.