Gabelli Funds LLC Sells 2,480 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Gabelli Funds LLC cut its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 169,971 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 2,480 shares during the period. Meta Platforms accounts for 0.8% of Gabelli Funds LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest holding. Gabelli Funds LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $124,823,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 64.8% during the 3rd quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

META has been the subject of several research reports. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $815.00 to $830.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Truist Financial upped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $815.00 to $850.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $810.00 to $885.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Guggenheim lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $850.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 1.0%

META stock opened at $654.07 on Wednesday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $479.80 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $1.65 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.83, a PEG ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.30. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $654.53 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $679.33.

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

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Shareholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.94%.

Key Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta acquired Moltbook, a viral social network built for AI agents, and will bring Moltbook founders into its Superintelligence Labs — a hire-and-build move that strengthens Meta’s AI research and product roadmap, reinforcing the company’s long-term AI leadership case. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: AMD announced a multiyear mega-deal to supply large-scale AI compute infrastructure to Meta — this supports Meta’s ability to scale AI training and products, and signals capital deployment toward compute that underpins revenue-generating AI services. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: High-profile investor interest and bullish commentary (e.g., Bill Ackman inclusion and articles naming Meta a leading Magnificent 7 pick) are supporting sentiment and could attract fresh inflows into META shares. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Meta publicly denied reports that CEO Mark Zuckerberg sidelined Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, aiming to shore up internal stability and reassure investors about continuity in AI leadership. This reduces short-term governance uncertainty. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Former Meta AI chief Yann LeCun’s startup AMI raised ~$1.03B on a large valuation — a sign of strong investor appetite for alternative AI approaches and a reminder that top AI talent and innovation can show up outside Meta; potential competitive signal but not an immediate revenue threat. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Meta will charge advertisers a location fee (2%–5%) to offset digital services taxes in some European countries — this raises the effective cost to advertisers, could pressure ad demand or margins in the region, and is being adopted by other big ad platforms as well. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: A Dutch appeals court upheld a ruling requiring Meta to offer chronological feeds in the Netherlands, limiting use of profiling-based ranking there — a regulatory/operational constraint that could increase compliance costs and set precedents for other jurisdictions. Article Title

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $590,056.46. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 16,113 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,267,364.73. The trade was a 5.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total value of $36,471,323.70. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 159,891 shares of company stock valued at $102,464,356 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

About Meta Platforms

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.