Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target Cut to $830.00 by Analysts at UBS Group

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its target price cut by UBS Group from $915.00 to $830.00 in a research report report published on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the social networking company’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Benchmark cut Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Arete Research set a $718.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $820.00 to $815.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, December 23rd. Finally, Guggenheim reduced their target price on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 8th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $821.07.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META stock opened at $604.12 on Tuesday. Meta Platforms 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 $640.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $698.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.98 and a quick ratio of 1.98. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.52 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.29.

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

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th were paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 9.28%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 6,875 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Saturday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.46, for a total transaction of $4,190,037.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 88,370 shares in the company, valued at $53,857,980.20. The trade was a 7.22% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 11,690 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $593.31, for a total value of $6,935,793.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,415 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,432,843.65. The trade was a 82.88% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 40,115 shares of company stock worth $24,741,055. Insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Meta Platforms

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of META. Goldstone Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of 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 during the period. Spirepoint Private Client LLC grew its position in Meta Platforms by 2.7% in the 2nd quarter. Spirepoint Private Client LLC now owns 4,080 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,011,000 after buying an additional 109 shares during the last quarter. Diversify Advisory Services LLC increased its stake in Meta Platforms by 10.4% in the 2nd quarter. Diversify Advisory Services LLC now owns 55,431 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $43,790,000 after buying an additional 5,224 shares during the period. CW Advisors LLC increased its stake 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. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in Meta Platforms by 11.0% during the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 210,526 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $155,387,000 after buying an additional 20,912 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Threads’ mobile daily users have reportedly passed X, indicating stronger engagement that could help ad monetization and user-growth narrative. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Instagram is shifting most ad inventory into Reels (over half of Instagram ads in 2025), supporting the company’s short‑form video monetization strategy. Read More.

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.