Brokerages Set Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) Price Target at $638.00

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the forty-three research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, four have assigned a hold recommendation, thirty-five have assigned a buy recommendation and two have issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $638.00.

META has been the topic of several analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC reissued an “underperform” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, October 31st. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $560.00 to $655.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $660.00 to $725.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $690.00 to $719.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of META stock opened at $599.81 on Thursday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $587.80 and its 200 day moving average is $546.12. The company has a quick ratio of 2.73, a current ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The stock has a market cap of $1.51 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.25, a PEG ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 1.20. Meta Platforms has a twelve month low of $340.01 and a twelve month high of $638.40.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The social networking company reported $6.03 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.19 by $0.84. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 35.55% and a return on equity of 35.60%. The firm had revenue of $40.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $40.21 billion. Research analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 22.68 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 16th were paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.33%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 9.42%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 8,951 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $577.16, for a total transaction of $5,166,159.16. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 51,591 shares in the company, valued at $29,776,261.56. The trade was a 14.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 731 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 3,414 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,901,598. The trade was a 17.64 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 324,805 shares of company stock worth $196,770,261. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 48,160,608 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $27,470,870,000 after buying an additional 698,884 shares in the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC increased its position in Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 14,440,868 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $8,266,531,000 after purchasing an additional 263,063 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 13,827,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $7,915,451,000 after purchasing an additional 118,298 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 57,001.5% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,517,111 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,447,975,000 after purchasing an additional 9,500,444 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 2.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 7,754,450 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,911,029,000 after buying an additional 208,677 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

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.