Meta Platforms’ (META) “Market Outperform” Rating Reiterated at Citizens Jmp

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)‘s stock had its “market outperform” rating restated by Citizens Jmp in a report released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $900.00 price objective on the social networking company’s stock. Citizens Jmp’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 33.35% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on META. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $920.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $860.00 price target (up from $750.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $800.00 price target (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. KeyCorp dropped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $855.00 to $760.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 9th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $900.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have given a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $836.30.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 0.6%

Shares of META traded up $4.03 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $674.94. 1,562,162 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,664,317. The firm has a market cap of $1.71 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.31. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $627.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $650.39. Meta Platforms has a 12-month low of $486.36 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $8.02 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 29.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,778 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Monday, April 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $629.45, for a total value of $1,748,612.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 10,557 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,645,103.65. The trade was a 20.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 164,562 shares of company stock valued at $105,310,238 over the last 90 days. 13.61% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Meta Platforms

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after acquiring an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Auto Owners Insurance Co boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% during the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $69,502,379,000 after acquiring an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 90,841,345 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $59,963,463,000 after acquiring an additional 4,395,763 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 52,806,712 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $34,734,628,000 after acquiring an additional 878,396 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,558,637 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $26,112,735,000 after acquiring an additional 310,947 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms

Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Noon Energy agreement to reserve up to 1 GW / 100 GWh of 100+ hour energy storage for Meta’s data centers — a material move for long?duration backup and sustainability at scale. This should reduce reliability and renewable integration risk for Meta’s expanding data?center footprint and may lower long?run energy costs or exposure to grid outages. Noon Energy and Meta Announce Plans
• Positive Sentiment: Meta’s expanded chip partnerships (Broadcom pact and ongoing custom silicon efforts) signal a strategic push to reduce NVIDIA dependency and vertically optimize AI infrastructure costs — potentially improving gross margins on AI compute and reducing supply risk. Investors view this as a long?term operational positive. The Meta-Broadcom AI Chip Deal
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to express conviction: Barclays reaffirmed a Buy with an $800 target after record app downloads, supporting the narrative that user engagement and ad recovery remain strong. That underpins upside vs. current levels. Meta Gets Analyst Approval After Record App Downloads
• Neutral Sentiment: Bank of America trimmed its price target to $820 from $885 but kept a Buy rating — a subtle re?rate that tempers some upside while leaving analyst support intact. This may limit near?term upside but keeps medium?term bullishness. BofA Trims Price Target to $820
• Neutral Sentiment: Macro/industry links: reports that Meta’s data?center buildout is lifting demand for chip fabs and energy suppliers (positive for partners such as TSMC and natural?gas suppliers) — an indirect tailwind to Meta’s supply chain but not an immediate earnings driver for META shares. News on TSMC and Hyperscaler Demand
• Negative Sentiment: Insider/insider?adjacent selling: a Meta director sold about $387k in stock — a modest signal but one that can add to negative headline momentum when combined with other news. Director Sells $386,860 in Stock
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Meta is preparing layoffs (reported “May 20” cuts) can pressure sentiment short term: cost reductions may boost margins later but raise execution and morale risks now. Meta Prepares for “May 20” Layoffs
• Negative Sentiment: Coverage noting Meta’s massive data?center capex (e.g., a $27B site) highlights growing operational scale but also raises questions about near-term capital intensity and reliance on traditional energy sources — a factor some investors treat as a near?term headwind. Meta’s $27 Billion Data Center & Natural Gas Spotlight

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.