1,089 Shares in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) Purchased by Variant Private Wealth LLC

Variant Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,089 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $638,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in META. Ballentine Partners LLC grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 58,218 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $34,087,000 after purchasing an additional 808 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 140,585 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $82,314,000 after buying an additional 897 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.9% during 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 buying an additional 118,298 shares in the last quarter. LS Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 111.4% during the third quarter. LS Investment Advisors LLC now owns 11,679 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,686,000 after buying an additional 6,155 shares during the period. Finally, Apollon Financial LLC raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 11.1% in the fourth quarter. Apollon Financial LLC now owns 1,479 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $866,000 after acquiring an additional 148 shares in the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 55,589 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $717.72, for a total value of $39,897,337.08. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 921 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $665.75, for a total transaction of $613,155.75. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 34,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $23,212,039.50. This represents a 2.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 813,951 shares of company stock worth $526,565,232 over the last three months. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

META has been the topic of several recent research reports. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $630.00 to $705.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $685.00 to $752.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Mizuho upped their target price on Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $750.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $750.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, Benchmark raised Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $820.00 price target for the company 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 given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $719.26.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

NASDAQ:META opened at $668.20 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.98. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $653.18 and a 200-day moving average price of $596.12. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $414.50 and a 1-year high of $740.91. The firm has a market cap 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 released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 previous year, the business earned $5.33 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.78%.

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.