Meta stock slips on Monday: what triggered decline despite strong recent gains?

Meta stock pulled back on Monday despite a robust year-to-date rally of over 75%, as investors digested a mix of year-end profit-taking and insider selling that collectively pressured the share price.Shares traded near $660, down modestly from Friday’s close of $663, reflecting a combination of routine corporate actions and the broader tendency for traders to lock in gains before 2026 begins.The move underscores how vulnerable mega-cap tech stocks remain to technical selling, even when underlying business fundamentals remain intact.Meta stock: Insider sales spark short-term sellingMeta’s ex-dividend date passed on December 15, when shareholders became entitled to receive a quarterly dividend of $0.525 per share, paid on December 23.That dividend window often prompts institutional portfolio rebalancing, as holders adjust positions after collecting the payment.Coinciding with that timing, two Meta executives reported stock sales on December 15 at $646 per share. COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares, and a company director sold 580 shares, according to SEC Form 4 filings.Neither sale was particularly large.Olivan’s transaction was worth roughly $334,000, and the director’s sale totaled approximately $375,000.Both were pre-arranged under Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, a compliance mechanism that allows executives to schedule stock sales months in advance.These planned sales carry no suggestion of insider distress or negative views on the business.Yet markets sometimes react to insider filings even when they’re routine.The timing of these December 15 sales, combined with Friday’s modest decline, created a narrative of tax optimization and position-trimming that traders picked up on Monday morning.In isolation, neither the dividend mechanics nor the small insider sales would typically spark meaningful downward pressure.Combined during a light holiday trading week, however, they provided tactical justification for profit-takers to reduce exposure.AI capex concerns amplify the pullbackThe bigger story is the seasonal dynamics at work.Meta is up 75% year-to-date from its January opening price of $592, sitting comfortably near its August peak of $796.That’s the type of annual gain that invites profit-taking in the final week of the year, when institutional investors rebalance portfolios and light volume amplifies price moves.Beyond seasonal factors, there’s a deeper concern that remains unresolved.Meta warned in October that 2026 expenses will grow at a “significantly faster” rate than 2025, driven by massive infrastructure and cloud commitments totaling more than $40 billion.Analyst Jason Helfstein at Oppenheimer drew a troubling parallel to 2021-2022, when Meta’s aggressive metaverse spending wiped out $307 billion in market value as investors ultimately abandoned the strategy as unproven.That memory still weighs on traders, and the stock remains down 17% from its August high as investors remain acutely sensitive to signs that the company may be overcommitting capital to unproven opportunities like artificial superintelligence.The post Meta stock slips on Monday: what triggered decline despite strong recent gains? appeared first on Invezz