First Manhattan CO. LLC. Raises Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

First Manhattan CO. LLC. lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 83.0% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 104,436 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 47,364 shares during the period. First Manhattan CO. LLC.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $61,298,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Millstone Evans Group LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $40,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter worth about $41,000. WealthTrak Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter worth $43,000. Marshall & Sterling Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $45,000. Finally, Cordant Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $59,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Wedbush upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $680.00 to $750.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Benchmark decreased their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $820.00 to $640.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Tigress Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $665.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Loop Capital cut their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $695.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-seven have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $696.45.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of META stock opened at $597.79 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.98. The company has a market cap of $1.51 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.99, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.24. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $442.65 and a 1-year high of $740.91. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $569.82 and a 200-day simple moving average of $604.14.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The social networking company reported $6.43 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.33 by $1.10. The firm had revenue of $42.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $41.45 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. Meta Platforms’s quarterly revenue was up 16.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $4.71 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th were issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. This is a boost from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.35%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.19%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Meta Platforms news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,795 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $715.82, for a total value of $25,622,776.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 608 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $488.18, for a total transaction of $296,813.44. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 5,622 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,744,547.96. The trade was a 9.76 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 155,689 shares of company stock valued at $109,097,842 over the last 90 days. 13.71% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Meta Platforms Company Profile

Meta Platforms, Inc engages in the development of products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and wearables worldwide. It operates in two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The Family of Apps segment offers Facebook, which enables people to share, discuss, discover, and connect with interests; Instagram, a community for sharing photos, videos, and private messages, as well as feed, stories, reels, video, live, and shops; Messenger, a messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, communities, and businesses across platforms and devices through text, audio, and video calls; and WhatsApp, a messaging application that is used by people and businesses to communicate and transact privately.