By otakuyassine3@gmail.com 
WR Wealth Planners LLC trimmed its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 18.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 514 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 113 shares during the quarter. WR Wealth Planners LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $301,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. JDM Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Cordant Inc. bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at $59,000. Finally, Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $70,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
Meta Platforms Price Performance
Meta Platforms stock opened at $627.93 on Friday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $414.50 and a 52 week high of $740.91. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $656.39 and a 200 day simple moving average of $599.31. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock has a market cap of $1.59 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.25, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.20.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $5.33 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Increases Dividend
The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.33%. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 8.78%.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $623.50, for a total transaction of $257,505.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 18,753 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,692,495.50. The trade was a 2.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 5,060 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total value of $3,727,550.20. Following the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 5,139 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,785,747.13. This trade represents a 49.61 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 775,295 shares of company stock valued at $504,237,715 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets
A number of research firms have weighed in on META. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $685.00 to $752.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Tigress Financial reissued a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Benchmark raised shares of Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $820.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $770.00 price target (up from $700.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, thirty-five have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $719.26.
Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Profile
Meta Platforms, Inc engages in the development of products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and wearables worldwide. It operates in two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The Family of Apps segment offers Facebook, which enables people to share, discuss, discover, and connect with interests; Instagram, a community for sharing photos, videos, and private messages, as well as feed, stories, reels, video, live, and shops; Messenger, a messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, communities, and businesses across platforms and devices through text, audio, and video calls; and WhatsApp, a messaging application that is used by people and businesses to communicate and transact privately.
See Also
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