Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Trading 2.5% Higher on Analyst Upgrade

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) traded up 2.5% on Monday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $640.00 to $810.00. Barclays currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Meta Platforms traded as high as $767.25 and last traded at $768.53. 5,541,666 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 64% from the average session volume of 15,584,562 shares. The stock had previously closed at $750.01.

Several other research firms have also recently commented on META. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $725.00 to $750.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Loop Capital boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $695.00 to $888.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 16th. Bank of America increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $775.00 to $900.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Roth Capital raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $620.00 to $740.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $685.00 to $690.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-nine have assigned a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $820.32.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 519 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $719.86, for a total value of $373,607.34. Following the sale, the insider owned 25,550 shares in the company, valued at $18,392,423. This trade represents a 1.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 15,847 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $753.43, for a total transaction of $11,939,605.21. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 167,298 shares of company stock worth $116,742,790. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Meta Platforms

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 608,429.2% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 59,775,823 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $44,119,937,000 after acquiring an additional 59,766,000 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 42,317,434 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $24,777,282,000 after acquiring an additional 1,049,121 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 40,317,105 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $23,606,338,000 after acquiring an additional 1,141,355 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 67,172.9% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 23,452,665 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $13,517,178,000 after acquiring an additional 23,417,803 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 13.5% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 23,445,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $13,727,613,000 after acquiring an additional 2,787,832 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

The company’s 50 day moving average price is $704.66 and its 200-day moving average price is $647.27. The stock has a market cap of $1.95 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.11, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a quick ratio of 1.97, a current ratio of 1.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The social networking company reported $7.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.75 by $1.39. The firm had revenue of $47.52 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $44.55 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 39.99% and a return on equity of 39.33%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 21.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $5.16 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 26th. Investors of record on Monday, June 16th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.60%.

About Meta Platforms

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.