Heron Bay Capital Management Lowers Stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Heron Bay Capital Management trimmed its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 8.8% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 23,953 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 2,306 shares during the period. Meta Platforms comprises about 3.3% of Heron Bay Capital Management’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest position. Heron Bay Capital Management’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $17,591,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after buying an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in 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 valued at $64,158,971,000 after buying an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings 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 valued at $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 second quarter valued at approximately $23,155,393,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Meta Platforms by 1.8% in the second quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,489,621 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $10,694,644,000 after acquiring an additional 262,550 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 1.0%

META opened at $654.07 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.65 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a current ratio of 2.60. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $654.53 and its 200 day moving average is $679.33. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $479.80 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be given a dividend of $0.525 per share. 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.94%.

More 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

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $590,056.46. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 16,113 shares in the company, valued at $10,267,364.73. This represents a 5.43% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 27th. The shares were 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. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 159,891 shares of company stock worth $102,464,356. 13.61% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wolfe Research reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $850.00 price target (up from $800.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $840.00 to $880.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Arete Research reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $900.00 price target (up from $870.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $825.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report 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 issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $844.44.

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.