META Seasonality Through the Election Cycle
Meta Platforms has traded publicly since 2013, giving us a 13-year sample to break down by the U.S. presidential election cycle. That covers at least three full cycles across every profile.
Reading the chart
The "All Years" line shows the average cumulative path across all valid years. The election-cycle profiles break those same years into groups by year type:
- Election — year % 4 == 0
- Post-Election — year % 4 == 1
- Mid-Term — year % 4 == 2
- Pre-Election — year % 4 == 3
- Trump Presidency Years — the defined Trump-administration years (2016–2019, 2024–2025)
- 2026 YTD — the direct cumulative return of the current year, so far
Open the explorer page and toggle each profile to compare.
Seasonal chart
Snapshot
| Price | $572.34 |
| Historical data range | 2013 – 2025 (13 years) |
| Current year | 2026 |
Profiles
| Profile | Range | Years |
|---|---|---|
| All Years | 2013 – 2025 | all 13 |
| Post-Election | 2013 – 2025 | 2013, 2017, 2021, 2025 |
| Mid-Term | 2014 – 2022 | 2014, 2018, 2022 |
| Pre-Election | 2015 – 2023 | 2015, 2019, 2023 |
| Election | 2016 – 2024 | 2016, 2020, 2024 |
| Trump Presidency Years | 2016 – 2025 | 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, 2025 |
| 2026 YTD | 2026 | 2026 |
Monthly checkpoints
Cumulative % change from Jan 1, sampled at each month-end (the last two December rows are day 364, one day short of year-end).
| Month | All Years | Post-Election | Mid-Term | Pre-Election | Election | Trump Presidency Years | 2026 YTD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 11.9% | 14.9% | 3.9% | 19.8% | 8.3% | 18.6% | — |
| Feb | 11.4% | 9.7% | -12.4% | 31.3% | 21.3% | 22.7% | — |
| Mar | 13.0% | 10.0% | -18.9% | 49.9% | 20.0% | 20.7% | -12.0% |
| Apr | 21.6% | 17.9% | -16.8% | 70.2% | 28.0% | 28.6% | -6.3% |
| May | 27.2% | 18.7% | -12.4% | 75.5% | 38.3% | 37.8% | -7.6% |
| Jun | 33.4% | 27.2% | -14.7% | 97.2% | 44.4% | 46.1% | -5.6% |
| Jul | 47.1% | 57.1% | -16.7% | 115.2% | 45.3% | 51.8% | -14.3% |
| Aug | 53.9% | 63.7% | -13.0% | 98.5% | 72.5% | 53.6% | -11.9% |
| Sep | 51.1% | 68.1% | -22.5% | 97.8% | 75.5% | 51.6% | — |
| Oct | 47.3% | 62.8% | -37.8% | 114.4% | 81.9% | 55.2% | — |
| Nov | 51.3% | 57.1% | -32.0% | 134.5% | 79.9% | 50.1% | — |
| Dec* | 58.5% | 71.3% | -31.1% | 149.0% | 78.8% | 50.6% | — |
Highlights
- 2026 is well below the historical pace. Through August, META is down -11.9%, far behind the ~54% average cumulative gain "All Years" typically shows by that point. It is also negative versus the Post-Election profile, which averages +63.7% by August.
- Pre-Election years are by far the strongest, compounding to +149% by December. The second half of Pre-Election years is especially strong, nearly doubling from ~99% in August to ~149% by year-end.
- Mid-Term years are the weakest by a wide margin, posting losses throughout the entire year and finishing at -31.1%. No other profile spends the full year underwater.
- 2026's deepest trough came in late March, hitting -19.1% on Mar 26, before recovering to -5.6% by June 30. The second half has seen renewed weakness, falling back to -14.3% by late July.
Caveats
This is historical statistics, not a forecast. Averages smooth over individual outlier years, so trade the summary above with that in mind. Full daily data is available on the explorer page.
Historical statistics based on available market data. Not financial advice. Source: Yahoo Finance