Egerton Capital UK LLP Lowers Stock Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Egerton Capital UK LLP lowered its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 541,167 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 10,128 shares during the period. Meta Platforms accounts for about 4.2% of Egerton Capital UK LLP’s holdings, making the stock its 11th biggest position. Egerton Capital UK LLP’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $397,422,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter valued at about $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 64.8% during the third quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about 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.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total transaction of $590,056.46. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 16,113 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,267,364.73. This represents a 5.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the 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 disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254 in the last quarter. Insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $685.00 to $700.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Roth Mkm dropped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 26th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $920.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $860.00 target price (up from $750.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.1%

Shares of META stock opened at $660.41 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $655.36 and a 200 day moving average of $682.50. 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 1-year low of $479.80 and a 1-year high of $796.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.67 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.30.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

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.