Scotiabank Increases Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target to $627.00

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price target lifted by Scotiabank from $583.00 to $627.00 in a note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a “sector perform” rating on the social networking company’s stock. Scotiabank’s target price indicates a potential downside of 9.02% from the stock’s current price.

Several other research firms have also recently commented on META. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $680.00 to $750.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. Citigroup raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $645.00 to $705.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Guggenheim raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $665.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Roth Mkm raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $620.00 to $635.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $525.00 to $530.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, thirty-six have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $706.76.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $689.18 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $1.74 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.19. Meta Platforms has a 12-month low of $387.10 and a 12-month high of $710.79. The company has a current ratio of 2.73, a quick ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $613.60 and its 200 day simple moving average is $565.78.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 39.74% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $5.33 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 25.44 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In related news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 905 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $666.00, for a total transaction of $602,730.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 29,295 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,510,470. This trade represents a 3.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.97, for a total value of $21,838,890.37. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 661,804 shares of company stock valued at $407,745,741. Insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. JDM Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter worth $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth $41,000. Halpern Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter worth $46,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter worth $49,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Company 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.