Court Place Advisors LLC Reduces Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Court Place Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 11.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 893 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 120 shares during the period. Court Place Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $523,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. JDM Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Halpern Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the third quarter worth about $46,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at about $49,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on the company. UBS Group lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $688.00 to $765.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Pivotal Research upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $875.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, Citigroup raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $753.00 to $780.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-six have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $706.76.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 731 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $557.00, for a total value of $407,167.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,414 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,901,598. This represents a 17.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.97, for a total transaction of $21,838,890.37. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 661,804 shares of company stock valued at $407,745,741 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 0.3 %

META stock opened at $689.18 on Friday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $387.10 and a one year high of $710.79. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $613.60 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $565.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 2.73 and a current ratio of 2.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.74 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.81, a PEG ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.19.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its 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 net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 39.74%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $5.33 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 25.44 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 16th were issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.36%.

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.