Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock Price Down 1.1% – Should You Sell?

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)’s stock price dropped 1.1% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $614.61 and last traded at $615.68. Approximately 11,631,676 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 22% from the average daily volume of 14,950,524 shares. The stock had previously closed at $622.66.

More Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Signed a 10‑year lease for a five‑story Fifth Avenue flagship to showcase AI glasses, VR/AR hardware and support long‑term retail discovery for hardware sales. Meta converts New York City pop-up store into permanent retail location
• Positive Sentiment: Launched “Creator Fast Track” and broader monetization programs (Meta paid creators nearly $3B in 2025), offering guaranteed monthly payouts to big creators to drive content supply, engagement and ad monetization. Meta will pay Instagram, TikTok and YouTube creators with big followings to post on Facebook
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Tigress Financial raised its price target to $945 and maintains a strong‑buy rating, reinforcing bullish analyst conviction about Meta’s recovery and AI-driven growth potential. Benzinga coverage of Tigress price target raise
• Positive Sentiment: Confirmed MTIA custom AI chips (developed with Broadcom) expand Meta’s inference capability and support scaling of recommendation and GenAI features — strengthens infrastructure strategy for ad relevance and product experiences. Why Meta’s AI Chip Announcement Has Broadcom Investors Paying Attention
• Neutral Sentiment: Secured a massive AI infra commitment with Nebius (reports of a $27B commitment) that ensures GPU capacity but commits Meta to very large multi‑year spending and vendor dependence. Nebius secures $27B AI infrastructure commitment from Meta Platforms
• Neutral Sentiment: Manus (Meta acquisition) shipped a desktop app to run its AI agent on personal devices — product expansion that could broaden AI usage but is early in monetization. Meta’s Manus launches desktop app to bring its AI agent onto personal devices
• Neutral Sentiment: Partnerships and integrations (e.g., MONAT social‑commerce integration) show platform utility for merchants but are incremental to core ad revenue. MONAT Announces Strategic Integration with Meta
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple reports of major layoffs and workforce reductions (rumors of up to ~20%) as Meta reallocates spend to AI capex — signals cost cutting but highlights execution risk and potential morale/retention issues. Meta Reportedly Plans Job Cuts as AI Spending Surges
• Negative Sentiment: Shutting down Horizon Worlds in VR and separating Quest/Horizon platforms (deadline June 15) underscores a retreat from earlier metaverse ambitions and may signal write‑downs or strategic pivots. Meta is shutting down VR social platform Horizon Worlds in further pivot away from the metaverse
• Negative Sentiment: Delay to the Avocado AI rollout raises near‑term product and revenue tempo risk after earlier expectations for that model. Meta Platforms Just Delayed Its Avocado AI Rollout
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory and safety issues: UK regulator found persistent failures to block illegal high‑risk financial ads, a reputational and compliance headwind that could bring fines or tighter oversight. Meta vowed to stop illegal financial ads in Britain. It failed 1,000 times in a week

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on META. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $825.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $872.00 price objective (up from $830.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Tigress Financial raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $935.00 to $945.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Pivotal Research reduced their price target on Meta Platforms from $930.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Four investment 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 MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $846.63.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.1%

The stock has a market cap of $1.56 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.30. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $651.86 and its two-hundred day moving average is $675.20. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS 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 company had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $8.02 earnings per share. Meta Platforms’s quarterly revenue was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company 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 yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.94%.

Insider Activity

In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total value of $5,106,100.36. Following the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 159,830 shares of company stock valued at $102,409,190. Insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of META. Auto Owners Insurance Co raised its holdings in Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $69,502,379,000 after buying an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth approximately $22,152,075,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 73,443.1% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,417,003 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,212,506,000 after purchasing an additional 8,405,558 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after buying an additional 7,269,279 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 488.1% in the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 5,466,595 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,608,445,000 after acquiring an additional 4,537,076 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.