META: Reddit’s S&P 500 Nod Puts Spotlight on Social Media Peers

Reddit (RDDT) was announced for S&P 500 inclusion on Aug. 18, sending shares up 11% in extended trading.
META is the only other pureplay social media company in the S&P 500, drawing comparisons from Reddit investors.
Hyperscaler capex projections continue to rise, with analysts estimating $733 billion in 2026 spending across top players including META.

Reddit’s announcement that it will join the S&P 500 index on August 18 sent shares of the social media platform surging 11% in extended trading on Thursday. The news quickly became the most-discussed ticker-related topic across Reddit, with investors on r/stocks and r/ValueInvesting analyzing the implications for the broader social media sector — and for

$META, the only other pureplay social media company in the benchmark index.

Reddit’s S&P 500 Inclusion Sparks Social Media Sector Talk

The S&P Dow Jones Indices announcement that Reddit would replace AvalonBay Communities in the S&P 500 drew immediate attention from retail investors. A post on r/stocks highlighting the news garnered 913 upvotes and 170 comments, with many users noting that Reddit becomes only the second pureplay social media company in the index alongside

$META. The comparison is natural: both companies derive the vast majority of their revenue from digital advertising, and both have seen their stocks benefit from the broader AI infrastructure spending boom.

On r/ValueInvesting, a user posted a detailed reverse-DCF analysis of Reddit, projecting that the company’s ARPU would need to roughly double by 2030 to justify the current valuation. The author explicitly noted they do not anchor Reddit to

$META because the platforms and user economics are too different — but the comparison itself underscores how investors are thinking about social media valuations in the current market.

Hyperscaler Capex Context

The Reddit discussion comes amid a broader theme of rising capital expenditure among the largest tech companies. A separate post on r/ValueInvesting about Tencent’s earnings drew comparisons to U.S. hyperscalers including

$META and Google, noting that spending on AI infrastructure has risen significantly over time. This aligns with a Motley Fool report published Thursday that Wall Street has raised Nvidia’s earnings estimates to 44% annual growth over the next three years, as analysts continue to underestimate hyperscaler spending. The top five hyperscalers — which include

$META — are now projected to spend $733 billion on capex in 2026, up from a prior estimate of $361 billion.

Sentiment and Engagement

META-related discussion on Reddit showed a moderately positive sentiment score of 0.21, with 16 posts and 422 comments generating 666 upvotes. The ticker ranked fifth overall in the Tendie.bot ticker rankings, with a significant rank delta of 219 — indicating a notable increase in discussion activity relative to its typical position.

The r/ValueInvesting community showed particularly strong engagement, with 83 posts and 2,110 comments across META-related threads, and an average sentiment of 0.62. The r/smallstreetbets community also showed interest, with 22 posts and a sentiment score of 0.66.

While the direct discussion about META was relatively quiet compared to the Reddit IPO news, the ticker’s elevated ranking and the thematic overlap between the two social media companies suggest that investors are increasingly viewing the sector through a common lens — one shaped by AI spending, advertising market dynamics, and index inclusion milestones.

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