Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC Has $8.25 Million Stock Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 99.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 11,232 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 8,405,771 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms comprises approximately 1.2% of Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 21st largest position. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $8,248,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $142,149,566,000 after buying an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $64,158,971,000 after buying an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Meta Platforms by 1.3% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $37,902,948,000 after buying an additional 682,768 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at about $23,155,393,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.8% during the second quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,489,621 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,694,644,000 after acquiring an additional 262,550 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

META has been the subject of a number of research reports. Bank of America raised their price objective on Meta Platforms from $810.00 to $885.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $900.00 price objective on Meta Platforms in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Meta Platforms from $910.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $1,117.00 to $1,144.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Pivotal Research decreased their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $930.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $844.44.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock worth $103,155,254 in the last quarter. 13.61% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms

Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Closed multiyear AI/content and chip-supply deals that should improve model training quality and reduce sourcing risk — supports AI product road map and longer-term ad/engagement upside. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Signed paid content-licensing arrangements (reported coverage highlights a News Corp deal) and created a new applied-AI engineering organization to speed model development — both point to faster commercialization of AI features that can lift ad yields. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Prominent investors and some brokers continue to list META as a buy or top idea (e.g., inclusion on Bill Ackman-related lists and select upgrades), supporting demand from long-term investors. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Company presented at investor conferences and several sell‑side reports reiterated valuation/scale arguments — useful for analyst color but not an immediate catalyst. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Wall Street downgrades and cut price targets citing concerns that Meta is “lagging on AI” — raises short-term growth and competition worries and likely contributed to intraday selling pressure. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales disclosed: CFO Susan Li sold roughly $36.5M and COO Javier Olivan also executed significant sales — while often planned (tax/vesting), these filers increase headline risk and can create short-term supply. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and competition pressure in Europe and Indonesia — Meta agreed to allow rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp in Europe (for a fee) to head off EU action, and Indonesia issued warnings over disinformation and algorithm transparency, adding compliance and revenue uncertainty in key markets. Read More. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: 13F filings show several high‑profile managers trimmed or exited META in Q4 — signals profit‑taking and reduced conviction from some large investors. Read More.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $644.86 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $654.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $681.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.60 and a quick ratio of 2.60. The company has a market capitalization of $1.63 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.30. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $479.80 and a one year high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The firm had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.33 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $8.02 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 16th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.94%.

Meta Platforms Profile

Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.

Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.