D.A. Davidson & CO. Raises Stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

D.A. Davidson & CO. grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 6.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 75,732 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,260 shares during the period. D.A. Davidson & CO.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $44,342,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in META. AMF Tjanstepension AB boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 32.5% in the 3rd quarter. AMF Tjanstepension AB now owns 457,092 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $261,680,000 after buying an additional 112,047 shares in the last quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 17.9% in the 3rd quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 1,652 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $946,000 after buying an additional 251 shares in the last quarter. Woodard & Co. Asset Management Group Inc. ADV boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 13.7% in the 3rd quarter. Woodard & Co. Asset Management Group Inc. ADV now owns 853 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $488,000 after buying an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC now owns 68,702 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $39,328,000 after buying an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dakota Wealth Management boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 4.9% in the 3rd quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 100,448 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $57,501,000 after buying an additional 4,735 shares in the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on META shares. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $765.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Pivotal Research upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $875.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Arete Research upgraded shares of Meta Platforms to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 24th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $770.00 target price (up from $700.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $720.00 to $790.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $719.26.

Meta Platforms Stock Down 2.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:META opened at $668.13 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52-week low of $414.50 and a 52-week high of $740.91. The company has a 50 day moving average of $647.97 and a two-hundred day moving average of $593.08. The company has a market capitalization of $1.69 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.20.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $5.33 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This is a boost from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.78%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.97, for a total transaction of $21,838,890.37. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 4,706 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total value of $3,466,769.02. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 20,935 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,422,186.45. This trade represents a 18.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 812,422 shares of company stock worth $525,534,818. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Meta Platforms 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.