Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) has been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the fifty analysts that are covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, thirty-nine have issued a buy recommendation and four have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $821.6304.

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on META. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $920.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, October 30th. DA Davidson set a $825.00 price target on Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Roth Capital reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their price objective on Meta Platforms from $830.00 to $720.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt lowered their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $860.00 to $808.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 30th.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other news, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 726 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $591.60, for a total value of $429,501.60. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 6,035 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,570,306. The trade was a 10.74% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 11,690 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $593.31, for a total value of $6,935,793.90. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 2,415 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,432,843.65. This trade represents a 82.88% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 41,440 shares of company stock valued at $26,233,492. Insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in META. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at about $30,000. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC increased its position in Meta Platforms by 237.5% in the second quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 54 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. Briaud Financial Planning Inc acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms in the second quarter worth about $42,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth about $44,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of META stock opened at $650.13 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $668.73 and a 200-day moving average of $707.04. The stock has a market cap of $1.64 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.72, a P/E/G ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.28. Meta Platforms has a 52-week low of $479.80 and a 52-week high of $796.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a current ratio of 1.98.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.74 by $0.51. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.89% and a return on equity of 39.35%. The business had revenue of $51.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.34 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $6.03 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 15th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is currently 9.28%.

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.