Two stocks to watch: META and KO

Meta Platforms, Inc. (META)

Shares in Meta Platforms, Inc. (symbol ‘META’) were in an almost perfect rally throughout the whole of the second quarter, with gains of more than 45% - outperforming both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. The company’s scheduled to report earnings for the quarter to 30 June 2023 on Friday 26 July after market close. The consensus EPS is $2.85 compared to $2.46 in the same quarter last year. 

 The tech giant is going at full speed, investing in AI-related products in an effort to be one of the big companies providing cutting edge tools to customers. Meta and Microsoft announced support for the Llama 2 family of large language models (LLMs) on Azure and Windows, at this year’s Microsoft Inspire partner event. According to the software giant, Llama 2 is designed “to enable developers and organizations to build generative AI-powered tools and experiences.” (from official Microsoft website)

Technical analysis shows the price has been in bullish momentum since the beginning of the year without any clear signs of a full trend reversal. The Stochastic oscillator was in the extreme overbought level for the last 2 months, while the price is approaching a strong technical resistance level of $320. This area consists of the 78.6% point of the weekly Fibonacci retracement level, the upper of the Bollinger bands and bolstered by the psychological resistance of the round number. 

Apart from the overbought Stochastic, there are no signs of a correction in the near short term. The moving averages also confirm the bullish trend, since the faster ones  - the 20-week  and  50-week - are trading well above the slower 100-week simple moving average. 

Coca-Cola Company (The), (‘KO’) 

Shares in Coca-Cola Company (The), (‘KO’) made gains in the first half of the second quarter topping at around 10%, before sliding to sit at a current minor profit of around 3%. The company is set to report earnings for the quarter to 30 June 2023, on Friday 26 July before markets open. The consensus EPS is $0.71, mirroring the $0.70 of the same quarter last year.  

The company's financial outlook is neither exciting nor dangerous. The current ratio is at 115% while the total assets outweigh the total liabilities at just over 1.5:1 as of 31 December, 2022. On the other hand, the company’s been consistently paying out good dividend yields of over 3%, making the beverage giant’s shares appealing to investors and pushing the price to the upside over the years.  

Technical analysis shows the price performing well in the last 5 to 6 sessions on the daily chart, subsequently pushing the Stochastic oscillator to extreme overbought levels. The 50-day simple moving average has crossed the slower 100-day SMA, possibly indicating that the recent bearish candlesticks might continue to appear in the near short term. 

All in all, $60.40 and $61.20 mark the technical support and resistance areas, since they are the 23.6% and 38.2% points of the daily Fibonacci retracement levels. The resistance area of the Fibonacci is also around the area of the 50-day and  100-day simple moving averages, making it a very strong level for possible price reaction.  

This is not investment advice. Past performance is not an indication of future results. Your capital is at risk, please trade responsibly.

---

Author:

Antreas Themistokleous

Antreas Themistokleous is a trading specialist in Exness. He is a Certified Financial Technician since 2018. As a member of the Society of Technical Analysts, Antreas is implementing advanced use of indicators and patterns to conclude in an action plan for different trading strategies.