wall street analysts continued to favor meta platforms meta over alphabet googl sending shares of meta up more than 3 and googl shares just slightly higher tuesday we understand the current desire to call out something of a pair trade selling alphabet and buying meta platforms on the part of analysts that cater to clients with shorter investment horizons since we have a longer investment horizon at the club we see room in our portfolio for both stocks at the moment one day after ubs raised its price target on meta citi on tuesday increased its price target on the stock to 360 per share from 315 and kept its buy rating bernstein late monday downgraded googl to market perform from outperform to hold from buy with a 125 price target ubs downgraded the stock early monday but raised its pt the case for meta over googl has been on display in this years techdriven rally the facebook owner has jumped nearly 140 in 2023 the google parent has only risen nearly 35 while most investors would have been overjoyed by either of those returns in last years terrible bear market metas costcutting moves and solid execution in 2023 have been rewarded to a greater degree than alphabets fits and starts googl ytd mountain alphabet ytd performance starting with a closer look at alphabet both the bernstein and ubs downgrade notes cited nearterm headwinds more than anything structural or material in the long term analysts at both firms expressed concern over how the implementation of generative ai might hurt searchrelated ad revenues and boost expenses at ubs the analysts said we see mediumterm revenue risk from new search sge displacing ad inventory with genai responses which may take time to optimize bernstein analysts said after being criticized for moving too slowly on generative ai google has been aggressively shipping genai products and starting to integrate bard into google search results google risks creating a nearterm revenue air pocket by cannibalizing prime realestate for their genai results which will take time for ad buyers to adopt they also called out the risk of increasing competition meta regaining market share shifting consumer behaviors and some some nearterm airelated monetization risks all contributing to pressure google search growth that said bernstein and ubs both also acknowledge that longerterm generative ai may very well prove a tailwind for alphabet thats more in line with our club thesis meta ytd mountain meta platforms ytd performance meta platforms meanwhile has been getting better reviews the analysts at citi came away from the recent cannes lions festival of creativity calling the broader online advertising market stabletoimproving they think that meta stands to be a key beneficiary thanks to the increasing adoption of reels shortform video they also cited new ad products and more engagement growth thanks to greater usage across feed stories messenger and whatsapp citi said that while instagram app downloads in the second quarter are tracking about 12 below tiktok downloads instagrams monthly active users maus are estimated to be up 6 annually versus tiktoks 4 annual increase as a result overall maus are projected to be about 20 higher on instagram versus tiktok instagram also appears to be closing the gap in terms of time spent on the apps about 31 hours per week for tiktok and about 22 hours per week for instagram by the way regarding engagement we learned tuesday that whatsapp business now has over 200 million maus up from 50 million in 2020 the analysts at ubs focused their price target increase on metas generative ai opportunity calling out chatbots as the top nearterm use case to deliver ad and demand signal the introduction of generative ai which could improve the shopping experiences already being built out on instagram and whatsapp also speak to the concern of rising competition for google search thats because they may be viewed as more specialized chatgptlike assistants to this point the analysts said snaps my ai chatbot is seeing considerable commercial activity that they see as a preview for meta users are using the snap bot to ask about everything from travel recommendations to skincare and cosmetics and clothingapparel bottom line both meta and alphabet are likely to benefit from generative ai in the longterm even if meta has more clearcut benefits in the near term however neither stock has a very demanding valuation with googl trading at 184 times fiscal year 2024 earnings estimates and 164 times free cash flow estimates and meta trading at 192 times 2024 earnings estimates and 259 times free cash flow estimates we also want to point out that wall street notes in general and particularly these alphabet ones are focused on more nearterm dynamics in other words more active investors with a shorterterm focus than many home gamers may have as a result if youre a longerterm investor it can be helpful to review the notes in order to stay informed or make decisions here and there about when to buy or book profits around the edges of a core position which we are currently debating internally however wall street research should be considered in the context of the clients it serves which are professional money managers so you have to ask yourself given alphabets valuation and longerterm opportunity does it make sense for most longterm investors to try and hop out of the stock at 118 per share in order to try and hop back in at 110 the answer is generally no trading in and out of a stock requires you to be correct over and over again selling it at the right time and buying it back at the right time for now our bias in googl given its current valuation and our longerterm bullish view is to leave the position as is for the moment jim cramers charitable trust is long googl meta see here for a full list of the stocks as a subscriber to the cnbc investing club with jim cramer you will receive a trade alert before jim makes a trade jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trusts portfolio if jim has talked about a stock on cnbc tv he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade the above investing club information is subject to our terms and conditions and privacy policy  together with our disclaimer  no fiduciary obligation or duty exists or is created by virtue of your receipt of any information provided in connection with the investing club no specific outcome or profit is guaranteed