Meta Platforms (META 2.61%) stock hasn’t been doing well this year. It’s up around 2% and has been underperforming the S&P 500, which has risen approximately 4% thus far. It’s been an underwhelming stock to own for several months now.
It trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 29, which is a bit modest compared to other stocks in the “Magnificent Seven.” Given the wealth of assets it possesses and the opportunities it’s tapping into with respect to artificial intelligence (AI), could the stock be a potential bargain buy right now?
Image source: Getty Images.
Just how cheap is Meta Platforms’ stock?
Meta’s stock may not be doing all that well this year, but don’t forget, this is a stock that has been on an absolute tear in recent years. Since 2023, it has risen by more than 450%. Focusing on just how it’s been doing over the past several months wouldn’t do justice to a stock that’s been one of the S&P 500’s best performers in the past few years.
Its P/E multiple is nearly 29, and while that’s come down a bit from where it’s been over the past couple of years, it’s still technically higher than its five-year average.
META PE Ratio data by YCharts
The sell-off in 2022 is skewing its average down, but the chart above provides important context for Meta’s valuation. While it has come down a bit, it’s nowhere near the bargain it was four years ago.
Does Meta’s stock warrant more of a premium?
I think it’s clear that Meta’s stock isn’t a bargain, which is what you would have gotten if you’d bought in 2022. But whether it’s still a good buy today depends on whether you think the social media stock deserves more of a premium than its current earnings multiple.
If you’re bullish on its AI prospects and opportunities in that realm, then arguably it may be worth paying more for the stock. However, I believe it may be due for a more substantial correction, given the company’s historically heavy tech spending. It has spent billions on a metaverse initiative that hasn’t come close to paying off, and as an investor, I’d be concerned that its AI investments might not be any more fruitful for the business. It seems as though Meta is once again chasing the latest trend.
Today’s Change
(-2.61%) $-18.00
Current Price
$670.55
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$1.7T
Day’s Range
$668.00 – $683.25
52wk Range
$479.80 – $796.25
Volume
841K
Avg Vol
16M
Gross Margin
82.00%
Dividend Yield
0.30%
In addition, the mounting concern around child safety protocols on its apps adds yet another uncertainty to the mix. Given all the context around its value, plus the risks and uncertainties ahead for Meta, this is a stock I’d pass on for the time being, at least until there’s evidence that its latest tech strategy will deliver meaningful profit growth.
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re not here theoretically.
You invested in a passive real estate deal. It didn’t work out. Maybe distributions stopped. Maybe you got a letter from the operator that didn’t have good news. Maybe you’ve done the math and you know the equity is gone.
That’s a specific kind of hurt. It’s not just the money. It’s the confidence hit, the second-guessing, the conversation you had to have with your spouse. The feeling that you should have known better.
I’ve been there. As an investor and as someone who has run deals. I’m not writing this from the outside.
So let’s talk about what to actually do next.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Any investment involves risk, and you should consult your financial advisor, attorney, or CPA before making any investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The author and associated entities disclaim any liability for loss incurred as a result of the use of this material or its content.
Most doctors don’t lose money in real estate because they lack motivation.
They lose it by trusting the wrong sponsor or skipping the details that matter.
Passive Real Estate Academy shows you how to vet deals like a pro, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.
LEARN MORE ABOUT PREA
Sit With It for a Minute
Before the practical steps, I want to spend a moment here.
When a deal doesn’t work out, there’s a specific kind of hurt that comes with it. It’s not just the money. It’s the confidence hit. The second-guessing. The replaying of the moment you decided to invest. Maybe the conversation you had to have with your spouse. The feeling that you should have known better. Or that someone else should have done better by you.
All of that is real. And I don’t want to rush past it.
I’ve felt it myself. As an investor who has put money into deals that didn’t perform. And as someone who has run deals that didn’t perform the way I projected they would. Both experiences carry weight. There’s a version of this hurt on both sides of the table. And I’ve sat on both sides.
I’m not going to tell you the loss doesn’t matter, or that it happened for a reason, or that it’ll all work out in the end. What I can tell you is that if you’ve had a deal go sideways in the last few years, you are not an outlier. And you’re not alone in trying to figure out what to do next.
That’s what this is for.
First: Understand What You’re Dealing With
Before anything else, it helps to get honest about what category you’re in.
Is the deal struggling but still alive? Are distributions paused but the asset is still operating? Or is this a complete loss, meaning the equity is gone and there’s no realistic path to recovery?
The answer matters because it changes the tax picture significantly, and it changes the timeline for the decisions you need to make.
If you’re not sure which category you’re in, that’s the first conversation to have with the operator. Get a straight answer on the current status of the asset, the debt situation, and what the realistic outcomes are from here. You deserve clarity, even if the news isn’t good.
Get Your Documentation in Order
This is the step most people put off when they’re frustrated or disappointed. Don’t.
Pull together everything related to the investment: your original subscription agreement, your K-1s for every year you’ve been in the deal, and any investor updates or correspondence you’ve received.
Your CPA is going to need all of it. The tax treatment of a loss depends on how the deal was structured and what the final outcome looks like. The cleaner your records, the easier that conversation is going to be.
Don’t assume this gets organized for you after the fact. Start now.
Talk to Your CPA Now, Not at Tax Time
This is probably the most important step in the entire process. And it’s the one most people delay until April, when it’s already too late to plan.
Quick note before we go further: I’m not a CPA or tax professional. What follows is a framework for the conversation you should be having with your own advisor, not advice for your specific situation. Please consult a qualified tax professional before making any decisions.
How Passive Losses Work in a Real Estate Deal
When you invest passively in a real estate syndication or fund, you receive a K-1 each year showing your share of the partnership’s income or loss. Real estate almost always generates paper losses annually, mostly from depreciation. If you’ve been in a deal for several years, those losses have been accumulating on your K-1s each year.
Here’s what most investors don’t fully understand: if you don’t have passive income to offset those losses against, they don’t disappear. They become what are called suspended passive losses. They’re attached to that specific investment, sitting on the books, carrying forward year after year.
What Happens at Complete Disposition
When a passive investment is completely disposed of, meaning the investment is fully and finally over with no remaining interest or possibility of recovery, all of those suspended passive losses are released at once. Every year of accumulated paper losses that you couldn’t use before becomes available in that single tax year.
And here’s the important distinction: in the year of complete disposition, those released losses can offset not just passive income but ordinary income as well. W-2 income. Business income. Self-employment income. Essentially any income.
For a physician who has been in a deal for three, four, or five years, that number can be significant. And it can create a meaningful tax offset in what is otherwise a very difficult financial year.
That’s not a silver lining in the cheerful sense. The money is still gone. But it’s a real financial consequence worth understanding and planning around before the tax year closes.
What Your CPA Needs to Figure Out
A few specific things your CPA will need to work through with you.
What is your adjusted basis in the investment? Every year of paper losses you’ve already taken has likely reduced your basis, which affects how the final loss is calculated.
Does this qualify as a complete disposition in the year you’re claiming it? The IRS requires the loss to be truly final. If the deal is still technically alive, even in a distressed state, the timing of the disposition matters.
Were there any distributions or returns of capital along the way? These affect the basis calculation and need to be accounted for accurately.
If you qualify as a Real Estate Professional for tax purposes, the picture changes further still. Some physicians who have reduced their clinical hours do qualify. That’s a separate but important conversation to have with your CPA, because the implications are significant. Understanding real estate depreciation and how it affects your basis is part of that picture.
None of this is simple. Which is exactly why the conversation needs to happen now, while there’s still time to make decisions, not during filing season when options are limited.
Keep Tracking Your K-1s, Even on Deals That Aren’t Performing
This one surprises people.
Even in a deal that has stopped distributing cash, your K-1 may still be showing paper losses from depreciation each year. Those losses are real. They’re accumulating. And depending on your overall passive income picture, they may be available to offset gains from other investments that are performing.
A lot of investors stop paying attention to K-1s on a deal that’s underwater because they don’t want to look at it. Understandable. But your CPA needs those numbers to give you an accurate picture of what’s available to you now and in future years.
Stay on top of them.
Do a Post-Mortem
This is the step most people skip. It’s also the most valuable one for everything that comes after.
And I want to be clear about what I mean by this. Not a blame exercise. Not a way to punish yourself for a decision you made with the information you had at the time. A post-mortem is just an honest look at what happened, specific enough that it actually changes how you invest going forward.
I do this myself after every deal that doesn’t go the way I planned. And the answers aren’t always comfortable. I’ve looked back at deals and realized I was too optimistic about projections, too optimistic about timelines, too willing to assume there was enough cushion if conditions changed. Those are my lessons to own.
You’ll have your own version of that exercise. And the answers will be specific to your situation.
A few questions worth sitting with and writing down.
What was the original thesis for this investment, and what had to be true for it to work? Where did reality diverge from those assumptions?
Was this primarily driven by market conditions, deal structure, or something specific to how this particular investment was set up? Understanding which category you’re in changes what you look for the next time you’re evaluating a deal.
What would you look at differently next time? Not in a general sense. Specifically. What question would you ask that you didn’t ask before?
There are no perfect answers here. Some of what happened was outside anyone’s control. Some of it wasn’t. The point isn’t to arrive at a verdict. It’s to leave this experience with something you can actually use.
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A Note on Market Cycles
Markets go through cycles. They always have. The questions you know to ask now, about debt structure, about what happens if the exit takes longer than projected, about where your capital sits in the capital stack: you didn’t know to ask those with the same urgency before. Now you do.
That knowledge is real. It’ll serve you in the future.
The investors who come through a difficult cycle better than they went in are the ones who stayed honest with themselves about what happened. Not the ones who pretended it didn’t hurt, and not the ones who decided the whole asset class doesn’t work. Somewhere in the middle. Clear-eyed about what went wrong. Still willing to do the work to do it better.
What to Do Next
If you’re sitting with a loss right now, the path forward starts with a few concrete steps.
Get your documentation together. Talk to your CPA before tax season, not during it. Keep tracking your K-1s. Do the post-mortem and write the answers down.
You made a decision with the information you had. Now you move forward with more.
Disclaimer: I am not a CPA, attorney, or financial advisor. The information in this post is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as tax, legal, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation before making any decisions.
Were these helpful in any way? Make sure to sign up for the newsletter and join the Passive Income Docs Facebook Group for more physician-tailored content.
Peter Kim, MD is the founder of Passive Income MD, the creator of Passive Real Estate Academy, and offers weekly education through his Monday podcast, the Passive Income MD Podcast. Join our community at the Passive Income Doc Facebook Group.
Long before technology enabled firms to identify and address service failures in real time, Fred Taylor Jr. earned an unusual nickname from a reporter: “Chief Apology Officer.” At Southwest Airlines, he championed a then-radical idea—don’t wait for customers to complain. Instead, build a team that reaches out first, acknowledges disruptions, and says sorry before frustration boils over.
For US homebuilders, the Iran war dashed what little optimism they had left for this earnings season.
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Developers including D.R. Horton Inc., Lennar Corp. and KB Home all missed expectations last quarter and estimates suggest both sales and earnings have fallen further as conflict in the Middle East unsettled buyers and raised costs.
Just as the spring selling season starts, the Iran war has pushed up oil prices and squeezed household budgets, adding volatility to an already fragile economy. Mortgage rates have also jumped back on renewed inflation concerns, while higher oil prices are expected to push up the cost of construction materials.
READ MORE: Why remodelers aren’t panicking about rising rates
As a result, homebuilders could face another “lost year,” Barclays analysts led by Matthew Bouley wrote. Elevated inventories may force builders to continue relying on incentives, which eats into margins, he added.
US homebuilders’ confidence fell to a seven-month low in April as a result of the array of setbacks, while analysts have largely cut their earnings estimates across the sector. KB Home saw the largest negative revision to 2026 adjusted earnings over the past year.
“There will be pressure on orders,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Drew Reading said, noting that rising economic and employment uncertainty is prompting consumers to delay big decisions.
Purchases such as homes or major remodels are being pushed to the sidelines until confidence improves, with recent geopolitical tensions adding to the hesitation.
Continued Pain
Even before the conflict, the sector was losing momentum. KB Home cut its full-year delivery and home-sales revenue guidance, while Lennar cautioned that geopolitical turmoil could affect its delivery target.
Even luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. has not been immune to softer demand and issued a delivery forecast for the quarter that fell short of estimates. “No builder is going to be immune from what’s happening with mortgage rates, consumer confidence and things like that,” Reading said.
READ MORE: LoanDepot partners with Texas builder for new lender launch
Now the Iran war will add to the pain, undoing developers’ efforts to lower direct costs — including materials and labor — as rising oil prices lift the outlays for petroleum-based products such as asphalt roofing and PVC, Reading said.
About two-thirds of US homebuilders have already reported higher material prices tied to increased fuel costs, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
Suppliers tied to housing also flagged similar trends. Flooring maker Mohawk Industries Inc. said weak housing turnover and low consumer confidence have limited renovation activity mostly to higher-income or essential projects. Roofing and insulation manufacturer Owens Corning’s outlook took into account continued weak construction and repair momentum.
HVAC maker Carrier Global Corp. expects “flattish” sales, citing soft residential construction, while building materials producers Vulcan Materials Co. and Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. both pointed to muted housing demand as partially affecting sales.
High diesel prices will also increase extraction, processing and freight costs, BI industrials analyst Spencer Liberman wrote in a note.
A meaningful recovery to the spring selling season is unlikely without a “quick and decisive end” to the conflict, which will be the only way to get buyers budging, Truist analyst Jonathan Bettenhausen wrote.
Stablecoin issuer Circle (NYSE:CRCL) has spotlighted an innovative integration from HIFI, a developer-focused payments platform, that makes cross-border USDC transactions faster, more secure, and far less cumbersome. By combining Circle Payments Network (CPN) with the native USDC bridging power of Circle’s Cross Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), HIFI now offers developers a single, programmable system for moving funds across blockchains and settling them as fiat anywhere in the world.
The partnership addresses a persistent pain point in stablecoin adoption.
While USDC circulates on dozens of chains—including Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism—most payout partners, such as banks and financial institutions, only accept funds on a limited set of networks like Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana.
Developers previously faced tedious manual bridging, liquidity juggling, and lengthy compliance setups for each new corridor.
HIFI’s solution eliminates these hurdles by handling bridging and off-ramping in one seamless workflow.
HIFI provides three flexible options tailored to different business needs. First, developers can use a simple bridging endpoint to move USDC securely between chains without leaving the HIFI ecosystem—ideal for pre-positioning funds.
Second, a single API request can trigger both bridging (if required) and a full CPN payout, converting USDC directly to local currency for contractors, creators, or suppliers.
Third, teams can bridge first and then execute the payout, allowing custom logic to run once funds reach the target chain. All operations stay within HIFI’s secure, audited environment, reducing operational risk and fragmentation.
At the center of this capability is CCTP, Circle’s official bridging standard.
Unlike traditional bridges that can introduce slippage or custody risks, CCTP burns USDC on the source chain and mints an identical amount on the destination chain.
It supports both EVM and non-EVM networks, delivers near-instant finality in many cases, and includes post-transfer hooks that let HIFI automatically trigger payouts or fee settlements the moment funds arrive.
This combination of speed, precision, and programmability makes CCTP far superior for high-volume, time-sensitive flows. Real-world applications are already compelling.
Companies can now pay global teams in local currencies while holding USDC on their preferred chain.
Treasury teams can maintain liquidity on one network and convert it instantly for international settlements.
Merchants accepting USDC payments can off-ramp directly to fiat partners worldwide through a unified interface, slashing manual work and compliance overhead.
The result is transformative. Developers no longer wait weeks to activate new payout routes or wrestle with multiple providers.
Institutions gain the ability to expand USDC reach to emerging chains like Base and Arbitrum without waiting for every beneficiary bank to add support.
By unifying bridging, compliance, and settlement under one roof, HIFI and Circle are turning stablecoins into a truly global, programmable rail for money movement—bringing the speed and efficiency of crypto to everyday cross-border finance.
The career field of business administration is a growing and vital one in the business world.
For organized and resourceful people, business administration careers can be the perfect career that combines good pay with fulfilling work.
But how do you go about attaining a career in business administration? In this video, we go over all the steps you’ll need to take in order to pursue a career in business administration. We talk about what it is specifically, and what some of the common business administration job types are.
Then we go over the requirements and process for getting a business administration degree. And we also cover the hard and soft skill sets you’ll need to have in order to successfully navigate your way into the field of business administration.
So if you are considering going into this up and coming field, where you can work with great people, help major companies, and get paid well, this video is perfect for you!
The latest Middle East flare-up has once again put theoretical asset pricing at odds with how markets actually clear: prices can move violently even when long-run fundamentals have not obviously changed.
In calm regimes, the textbook framework, risk premia as compensation for bearing systematic risk, does a respectable job of organizing returns. But in stress, a different mechanism often dominates. Prices clear less as a referendum on fair value and more as a function of constraints: leverage, margining, liquidity, mandates, and who is forced to transact first.
In those moments, equilibrium is less about consensus and more about balance-sheet capacity.
For institutional investors and the investment professionals serving them, the implication is practical. A mispricing is only an opportunity if it can be held until it closes. The relevant horizon is not valuation, but funding and governance.
In practice, this shows up in a few consistent shifts:
You stop treating volatility as a sufficient measure of risk.
Variance is a statistic. Investor pain is often driven by fragility — the interaction of leverage, liquidity, path dependency, and funding terms. In the gilt episode, the defining risk was not that yields moved, but that the move triggered collateral calls and forced sales in an illiquid market.
You stop treating “cheap” as inherently actionable.
A mispricing is only an opportunity if you can survive the path to convergence. The relevant horizon is not valuation, but funding and governance. Capacity is not a “risk overlay”; it is part of the edge.
You reinterpret cash and patience as optionality.
In a consensus-clearing world, holding cash can feel like an admission of analytical defeat. In a balance-sheet-clearing world, cash is an intentionally held option, it allows you to provide liquidity when others are forced to sell. The right question is not “why aren’t we fully invested?” but “are we paid for the fragility we are underwriting, and can we hold it when it bites?”
You treat governance as a market variable.
Many institutions treat liquidity as an attribute of the asset. In practice, liquidity depends on who needs to trade at the same time and whether your decision-making can respond at the speed the regime demands. Governance latency is not a cultural issue; it is a risk parameter.
About 1,000 animal welfare activists who tried to gain entry Saturday to a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin were turned back by police who fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd and arrested the group’s leader.
It was the second attempt in as many months by protesters to take beagles from the Ridglan Farms facility in Blue Mounds, a small town about 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Madison.
Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett, said in a video statement that 300 to 400 protesters were “violently trying to break into the property” and assault officers. He said protesters have ignored designated areas for peaceful protest and blocked roads to prevent emergency vehicles from entering.
“This is not a peaceful protest,” Barrett said.
The sheriff’s department said a “significant” number of people were arrested out of about 1,000 protesters at the site but did not give an exact total as they were still being processed as of the afternoon.
Protesters tried to overcome barricades that included a manure-filled trench, hay bales and a barbed-wire fence. Some protesters did get through the fence but were unable to enter the facility, where an estimated 2,000 beagles are kept, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
“I just feel defeated,” activist Julie Vrzeski told the newspaper about three hours into the operation after no dogs had been successfully seized.
Activists later moved from the Ridglan facility to protest outside the jail in downtown Madison.
The group Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs had publicized plans to seize the dogs Sunday but launched its operation a day earlier. The X account of the group’s leader, Wayne Hsiung, posted a picture of him being arrested.
The sheriff’s department said a person who “recklessly” drove a pickup through the front gate of the property was arrested, “preventing a potentially deadly outcome.”
Protesters broke into the facility in March and took 30 dogs. Twenty-seven people were arrested on trespassing and other charges.
Ridglan has denied mistreating animals but agreed in October to give up its state breeding license as of July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges.
On its website it says “no credible evidence of animal abuse, cruelty, mistreatment or neglect at Ridglan Farms has ever been presented or substantiated.”
Technology continues to reshape the workplace, but many professionals are finding that balance, not a fully digital workplace, is the secret to doing their best work. The Analog at Work Pulse Report from FlexJobs, based on a survey of over 4,400 workers, explores how employees are navigating technology, AI, and traditional work habits as digital tools become more common across industries.
