Andra AP fonden Lowers Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Andra AP fonden decreased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 54.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 45,689 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 54,900 shares during the period. Andra AP fonden’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $33,553,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth about $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth approximately $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 64.8% in the third quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $825.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Monness Crespi & Hardt upped their target price on Meta Platforms from $808.00 to $890.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Guggenheim raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $850.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $730.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $844.44.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Signed a multiyear AI content‑licensing deal with News Corp that provides paid access to news content for training/retrieval — supports AI product quality and reduces legal/quality risk around training data. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Created a new applied AI engineering organization to speed model development and partner with its Superintelligence Lab — signals accelerated product rollout and continued R&D investment that can boost ad/product monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Erste Group upgraded META from “hold” to “buy”, adding a positive analyst catalyst that can support demand in the stock.
• Neutral Sentiment: Company presentation at Morgan Stanley TMT conference provided additional management commentary and analyst color — useful for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Arete Research reaffirmed a “neutral” rating, offering little directional pressure today.
• Negative Sentiment: Under EU antitrust pressure, Meta will allow rival AI chatbots onto WhatsApp in Europe (via its Business API) for a fee for the next 12 months — a concession that reduces immediate regulatory risk but highlights EU scrutiny and could erode WhatsApp exclusivity. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales disclosed this week — CFO Susan Li sold ~56,571 shares (~$36.5M) and COO Javier Olivan also sold shares — which can create headline pressure and short‑term selling even if plan‑driven. Read More. • Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/reputational pressure from Indonesia, which issued a “stern warning” over disinformation and gambling content and pressed for greater algorithm transparency — potential compliance costs or restrictions in a large market. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Operational risks surfaced: recent U.S. user outages (short‑term engagement/ad impression risk) and reports Meta scrapped its second‑generation Olympus AI chip effort — the latter could raise execution risk and greater reliance on external GPU suppliers. Read More. • Read More.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META stock opened at $660.41 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.67 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.60 and a quick ratio of 2.60. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $655.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $682.50.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted 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 net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. The business had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $8.02 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total value of $36,471,323.70. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 160,927 shares of company stock worth $103,155,254. 13.61% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.