When Jim Cramer, CNBC's stock market guru, starts crying over a collapsing stock, it's time to buy. And Cramer broke down after Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg's financial conference in the fall of 2022. In presenting his quarterly financial results, the Facebook founder had nonchalantly indicated that he would continue to sink his capital into his visionary metaverse project.

At the beginning of November 2022, the share price had bottomed out at under $90, having fallen 75% in 15 months. On Thursday, February 1, five quarters later, all is forgotten and forgiven. Following the presentation of results for the year 2023, the share price soared by 15%, reaching $450, a fivefold increase. "Fantastic," judged Cramer.

The results were impressive, with net income of $39 billion for the year on sales of $135 billion. Everything accelerated in the last quarter. The group's sales – advertising – increased by 25% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous year. The company's breakthrough came thanks to artificial intelligence, which enables it to better target its advertising.

These technological advances enabled it to overcome the rules imposed by Apple, which cost it some $10 billion in revenue in 2022. This was coupled with drastic cost savings, for a company that had been hiring like crazy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The virtual reality world swallowed another $4.6 billion this quarter, bringing the total loss since the project's launch to $40 billion!

However, this was actually less than in previous quarters and, more importantly, sales doubled to $1 billion. As a result, the company, which has 2.1 billion daily users, saw its operating margin more than double to over 40% of sales.

For the first time, Meta announced a $0.50 dividend and $50 billion in share buybacks. "We had a good quarter as our community and company continue to grow," Zuckerberg announced. "We've made a lot of progress in our vision to develop artificial intelligence and the metaverse."

This triumph came on the heels of a session in Congress where Zuckerberg was confronted by the families of children who had died or been victims of abuse or mental health issues on social media. The Meta boss apologized to the families. "I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. It's terrible," Zuckerberg told the parents at the Capitol. "No one should go through the things that your families have suffered."

Thursday also saw triumph for Amazon, which soared by almost 7% after better-than-expected cloud results, while Apple announced a return to an increase in its revenue. The stock fell by 3% due to declining sales in China, just as Google was down on Wednesday due to results that did not sufficiently exceed expectations.

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