Meriwether Wealth & Planning LLC Purchases Shares of 536 Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Meriwether Wealth & Planning LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 536 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $314,000.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of META. JDM Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,000. Cordant Inc. acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $59,000. Finally, Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms during the third quarter worth approximately $70,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $800.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $800.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Argus set a $775.00 target price on Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $530.00 to $610.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $770.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $719.26.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $629.56, for a total transaction of $260,008.28. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 18,340 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,546,130.40. The trade was a 2.20 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 8,553 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total transaction of $6,300,738.51. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 51,793 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $38,154,349.31. This represents a 14.17 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 690,689 shares of company stock valued at $451,269,409 over the last three months. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META opened at $607.60 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $658.01 and a 200-day moving average of $602.61. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $414.50 and a 1 year high of $740.91. The company has a market cap of $1.54 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $5.33 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.35%. This is a boost from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 8.78%.

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.