$Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ 

Meta Platforms (META), formerly Facebook, has been on an elevator ride up since November as the firm finally committed to cutting costs as its top-line growth slows. Meta, like Amazon and others over-hired during the pandemic boom. Meta said in mid-March that would cut another roughly 10K jobs in the coming months in what Mark Zuckerberg is calling the “year of efficiency.”

The social media titan’s disappointing 2022 is now in the rearview and it is ready to return to top and bottom line growth as it focuses once again on its core businesses Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, all of which will bounce back from a bad year for digital advertising because its reach is out of this world. Meta’s ‘monthly active people’ popped 4% in Q4 to 3.74 billion, while daily active users jumped up 5% to 2.96 billion, or nearly 40% of the world.