Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock Price Up 0.1% Following Analyst Upgrade

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) rose 0.1% during trading on Tuesday after Raymond James raised their price target on the stock from $675.00 to $725.00. Raymond James currently has a strong-buy rating on the stock. Meta Platforms traded as high as $621.50 and last traded at $613.50. Approximately 3,201,222 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 74% from the average daily volume of 12,363,796 shares. The stock had previously closed at $612.77.

META has been the topic of several other reports. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $525.00 to $530.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $645.00 to $705.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $700.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $651.27.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $613.85, for a total transaction of $22,050,105.85. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 905 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $580.10, for a total value of $524,990.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 31,482 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $18,262,708.20. This trade represents a 2.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 531,190 shares of company stock worth $322,938,501 in the last 90 days. 13.71% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Meta Platforms

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 57,001.5% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,517,111 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $5,447,975,000 after purchasing an additional 9,500,444 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 61,769.3% during the third quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC now owns 4,132,870 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $2,365,820,000 after purchasing an additional 4,126,190 shares during the last quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 4,658.5% during the third quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC now owns 909,548 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $520,662,000 after purchasing an additional 890,434 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.5% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 48,160,608 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $27,470,870,000 after purchasing an additional 698,884 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 926.6% during the second quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund now owns 733,358 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $369,774,000 after purchasing an additional 661,923 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 2.73 and a quick ratio of 2.73. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $598.00 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $558.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.56 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.16 and a beta of 1.19.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The social networking company reported $6.03 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.19 by $0.84. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 35.60% and a net margin of 35.55%. The firm had revenue of $40.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $40.21 billion. On average, equities research analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 22.96 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 16th were given a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.42%.

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.