Viawealth LLC Decreases Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Viawealth LLC decreased its stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 4.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,125 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 53 shares during the period. Viawealth LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $659,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of META. JDM Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at about $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $41,000. Cordant Inc. purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $59,000. Finally, Bear Mountain Capital Inc. purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $70,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on META. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $688.00 to $765.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. KeyCorp reduced their target price on Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $710.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. UBS Group increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Tigress Financial reaffirmed a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, Argus set a $775.00 target price on Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $718.31.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $596.25 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $655.38 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $605.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a market cap of $1.51 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.93, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $414.50 and a 1 year high of $740.91.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $5.33 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.35%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.78%.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 55,589 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $717.72, for a total transaction of $39,897,337.08. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $590.00, for a total value of $243,670.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,927 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,576,930. This represents a 2.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 622,844 shares of company stock valued at $409,212,161 in the last three months. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Meta Platforms

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.