Meta Platforms, Inc. $META Shares Sold by American Century Companies Inc.

American Century Companies Inc. lessened its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 3.8% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 5,423,288 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 212,362 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for approximately 2.0% of American Century Companies Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest position. American Century Companies Inc. owned about 0.22% of Meta Platforms worth $3,982,755,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of META. Goldstone Financial Group LLC raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 44.4% in the third quarter. Goldstone Financial Group LLC now owns 3,752 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $2,756,000 after purchasing an additional 1,153 shares in the last quarter. CW Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 27.8% in the 2nd quarter. CW Advisors LLC now owns 176,762 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $130,467,000 after buying an additional 38,432 shares during the period. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 34.2% in the 3rd quarter. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC now owns 52,252 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $38,373,000 after buying an additional 13,311 shares in the last quarter. Cherokee Insurance Co bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,321,000. Finally, Bangor Savings Bank lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 36.6% during the 3rd quarter. Bangor Savings Bank now owns 3,134 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $2,302,000 after acquiring an additional 840 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms

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.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

META has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Barclays restated 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. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $872.00 price objective (up from $830.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $810.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Arete Research reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three research 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 MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.1%

Shares of META stock opened at $660.41 on Friday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $479.80 and a 1-year high of $796.25. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock has a market cap of $1.67 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.10, a PEG ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.30. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $655.36 and a 200-day moving average of $682.50.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.33 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $8.02 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be 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 is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.94%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In related news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total value of $5,106,100.36. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 160,927 shares of company stock worth $103,155,254 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

About Meta Platforms

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.