Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. Grows Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. raised its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 5.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 60,102 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 3,223 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up approximately 1.4% of Sumitomo Life Insurance Co.’s portfolio, making the stock its 16th biggest position. Sumitomo Life Insurance Co.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $44,138,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of META. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after purchasing an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $64,158,971,000 after buying an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of 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 during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $23,155,393,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.8% during the 2nd 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 last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $810.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $800.00 price objective (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $872.00 target price (up from $830.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Argus reissued a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

META stock opened at $654.99 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $655.47 and a 200-day moving average of $682.76. The company has a market cap of $1.66 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.87, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25.

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

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be given a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.94%.

Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: News Corp signed a multiyear paid content‑licensing deal with Meta that can supply training and retrieval content for Meta’s AI tools — a direct revenue/licensing relationship that improves AI data quality and reduces legal/content risk. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is forming a new applied AI engineering organization (flat structure, large IC:manager ratios) to accelerate model development in partnership with its Superintelligence Lab — signals sustained R&D investment and faster AI product iteration. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Reuters/Bloomberg reports Meta is testing an AI‑powered shopping research tool for its chatbot, a potential new commerce revenue stream that could diversify monetization beyond ads. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Institutional buyers continue to accumulate META even as executives sell, which investors interpret as conviction from long‑term funds — useful context but not an immediate fundamental change. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are re‑assessing Meta’s valuation after its multi‑year run; some view current multiples as reasonable given >20% revenue growth and strong margins — background for positioning rather than a catalyst. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader market volatility from geopolitical tensions is dragging tech stocks broadly and could pressure META episodically; this is a macro headwind, not company‑specific. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) in a disclosed SEC filing. Large insider sales can spur short‑term selling even if executed under prearranged plans. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages affecting thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector), a transient engagement/reputation hit that could briefly impact ad impressions. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Meta scrapped its second‑generation Olympus AI accelerator highlight execution risks in custom silicon and likely increase reliance on external GPUs (Nvidia/AMD), with cost and supplier implications. Read More.

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, 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 completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at $1,793,352.84. This trade represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 159,372 shares of company stock valued at $102,164,393 in the last quarter. Insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Company 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.