Abacus Planning Group Inc. Sells 26 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Abacus Planning Group Inc. lowered its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 0.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,018 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 26 shares during the period. Abacus Planning Group Inc.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $2,353,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of META. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.5% in the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 14,440,868 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $8,266,531,000 after purchasing an additional 263,063 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 13,827,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $7,915,451,000 after purchasing an additional 118,298 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,946,755 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $4,101,602,000 after purchasing an additional 186,728 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 4.6% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 6,565,134 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $3,758,146,000 after purchasing an additional 289,207 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have commented on the stock. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $800.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Tigress Financial reiterated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Roth Mkm upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $620.00 to $635.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. 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 research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, thirty-five have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $719.26.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 608 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $686.28, for a total transaction of $417,258.24. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 9,270 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,361,815.60. The trade was a 6.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 813,030 shares of company stock valued at $525,952,077. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META stock opened at $673.70 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $1.71 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.16, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.20. The company’s 50 day moving average is $650.26 and its 200 day moving average is $594.62. 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.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 last year, the company earned $5.33 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.31%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.78%.

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.