Ithaka Group LLC Has $40.05 Million Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Ithaka Group LLC lessened its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 1.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 54,538 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 890 shares during the period. Meta Platforms makes up about 6.8% of Ithaka Group LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 4th largest position. Ithaka Group LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $40,052,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of META. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $23,155,393,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in Meta Platforms by 73,443.1% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,417,003 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,212,506,000 after purchasing an additional 8,405,558 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $142,149,566,000 after purchasing an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Concentrum Wealth Management boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 948.7% in the 3rd quarter. Concentrum Wealth Management now owns 1,243,577 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $913,000 after purchasing an additional 1,124,998 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

META has been the topic of several recent research reports. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $910.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. 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. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, December 29th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $730.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $840.00 to $880.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note 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 issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $844.44.

Key Headlines 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.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $660.41 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.60 and a quick ratio of 2.60. The stock has a market cap 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 firm has a 50-day moving average of $655.36 and a two-hundred day moving average of $682.50. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $479.80 and a 1 year high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The firm had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. The company’s revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $8.02 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at $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 available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The shares were 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. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254. 13.61% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.