Meta shares plunged 14% this week, falling close to their pandemic low

Facebook hasn’t been this cheap since the pandemic began.

After falling 14% for the week to close at $146.29, shares of Facebook parent Meta are at their lowest point since March 2020, and for a period on Friday they had sunk even lower. The Meta has lost 61% of its value over the past 12 months, the biggest drop among Big Tech stocks and more than double the decline in the Nasdaq Composite.

After sliding for five straight days, the Meta is now trading just 28 cents above its closing price on March 16, 2020, when the first days of Covid-19 sent US stocks reeling.

If Meta falls below $146.01, it will be the lowest level since January 2019. At the time, Facebook was dealing with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which tested user confidence in the social media company and led to a series of heated congressional hearings .

Still, Facebook managed to expand its US active users this quarter, albeit by just under 1 percent.

Since officially changing its name to Meta last October, the news about CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company has been almost all bad. Apple’s iOS privacy update has made it harder for the company to target ads, and the increased popularity of social media rival TikTok has driven users and advertisers away from the app. Meanwhile, the economic slowdown has caused many companies to cut back on online marketing spending.

In July, Meta said it expected a second straight period of declining sales as it reported second-quarter earnings that were missing on the top and bottom lines.

I’M WATCHING: I’m not sure there’s a core business in the Meta that works anymore