Dakota Wealth Management Grows Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Dakota Wealth Management boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 2.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 78,384 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,514 shares during the period. Meta Platforms accounts for about 1.2% of Dakota Wealth Management’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Dakota Wealth Management’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $57,564,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of META. Insight Advisors LLC PA increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.5% in the third quarter. Insight Advisors LLC PA now owns 3,052 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $2,243,000 after purchasing an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 21,603 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $15,865,000 after buying an additional 1,137 shares in the last quarter. Cornerstone Capital Inc. boosted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Capital Inc. now owns 24,259 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $17,815,000 after buying an additional 376 shares during the period. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC increased its stake in Meta Platforms by 7.6% in the 3rd quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 5,559 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $4,082,000 after buying an additional 392 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fortis Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Meta Platforms by 4.1% during the third quarter. Fortis Capital Management LLC now owns 19,052 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $13,991,000 after acquiring an additional 744 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $815.00 to $830.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $800.00 price objective (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $900.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, January 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $825.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Key Meta Platforms News

Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Reported multiyear deal to rent Google’s TPU chips to accelerate model training — expands Meta’s compute capacity quickly without buying all hardware, supporting AI roadmap and ad/AI monetization prospects. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Deal with AMD for GPUs and plans for very large 2026 capex (reported commitments and nuclear power pacts) strengthen Meta’s in‑house training scale and long‑term AI competitiveness, which investors view as revenue‑accretive over time. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is trialing stablecoin payments across Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, targeting faster payments and adoption in underbanked markets — a potential new revenue stream and higher engagement in emerging markets. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Company sued advertisers over celebrity‑impersonation scams and took technical enforcement actions — a move to shore up ad quality and preserve advertiser trust. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI hired a high‑profile Meta AI researcher — talent movement highlights competition for AI engineers but is common across the sector and not unique to Meta. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst/industry comparisons show Alphabet gaining share in AI‑fuelled search and investing aggressively — useful context for competitive positioning but not an immediate earnings event. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: EU court adviser sided with regulators in a dispute over antitrust data requests — raises regulatory/compliance risk and potential costs in Europe. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: High‑profile US trial testimony about social‑media harms and new Instagram parent‑alert policies keep litigation and reputational risk elevated, which can pressure sentiment and regulatory scrutiny. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales by CFO Susan Li (55,702 shares) and recent COO selling may be read negatively by some investors, adding near‑term selling pressure despite common non‑signal reasons for sales; SEC filing available. Read More.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,793,352.84. The trade was a 74.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 55,702 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $633.61, for a total transaction of $35,293,344.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,354,781.46. This represents a 80.86% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 103,320 shares of company stock valued at $66,026,381 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Down 1.3%

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $648.18 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $655.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $684.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.64 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.30.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The company had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $8.02 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.94%.

Meta Platforms Company Profile

Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.

Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.