[EARNINGS CALL] Meta (META) outlook; Revenue Guidance 73bln-76bln, FY 2026 Total Expenses Guidance 175bln-179bln, FY 2026 Capex Guidance 135bln-145bln (prev. 130bln-145bln)

• Q4 revenue guidance assumes \~1% Y/Y FX headwind
• FY expenses guidance raised to include 9.9bln Q3 legal charge
• FY operating income expected above 2025 levels, excluding Q3 legal charge
• FY Reality Labs Loss Guidance 18bln-19bln, expected to decline Y/Y
• FY Capex Guidance narrowed to 135bln-145bln, including finance lease principal payments
• Q4 Effective Tax Rate Guidance 15%-17%
• Ongoing legal and regulatory scrutiny, including upcoming US youth-related trials
• Announced plans for an effective 2-for-1 stock split through the issuance of a new class of non-voting shares
• Shareholders to receive one new non-voting share for each existing share held
• New non-voting shares expected to begin trading in late January 2027
• Strong Q3 execution across core advertising and engagement initiatives
• Continued progress towards personal superintelligence strategy

Meta guidance prints of this kind have historically traded almost entirely on two lines: the capex trajectory and the expense outlook, with the revenue band treated as the equity backdrop rather than the driver. On prior occasions where the capex range was lifted or held at elevated levels, the stock has sold on margin compression fears and then been re-bought over subsequent quarters as ad revenue growth outran spend, a sequence that has repeated through each step-up in AI infrastructure buildout. The widening disclosure that capex now includes finance lease principal payments is the tell to note: companies that shift toward leasing to fund datacentres are typically signalling capacity demand running ahead of cash-flow comfort, and peers in the hyperscaler complex have followed the same pattern. The Reality Labs loss guidance declining year on year continues a familiar pattern of containing that segment's drag without ever removing it from the bear case. The stock split via non-voting shares has no earnings consequence; past episodes of founder-controlled issuers issuing non-voting stock have been about preserving control through indexable capital raises, and index treatment of the new class is the open question that determines any passive flow. One-off legal charges of this size have tended to fade from the tape quickly, while the flagged youth-related trials are a tail that historically re-prices only on adverse rulings, not on schedule updates.