Crews Bank & Trust Acquires New Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Crews Bank & Trust acquired a new position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,559 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $913,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of META. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 13,076 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $7,656,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Stordahl Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $428,000. DMC Group LLC lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. DMC Group LLC now owns 5,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,258,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Abel Hall LLC lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Abel Hall LLC now owns 2,716 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,590,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Synergy Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 113.1% during the fourth quarter. Synergy Asset Management LLC now owns 65,932 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $38,680,000 after buying an additional 34,991 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on META. Arete Research upgraded shares of Meta Platforms to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $685.00 to $752.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $811.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $688.00 to $765.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $710.83.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 1.2 %

META opened at $697.46 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $616.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $568.60. The company has a market cap of $1.76 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.20. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $414.50 and a 1 year high of $710.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 period in the previous year, the firm posted $5.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 25.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 12,975 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $696.39, for a total transaction of $9,035,660.25. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 210,971 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $146,918,094.69. This represents a 5.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Nicholas Clegg sold 1,131 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $577.16, for a total value of $652,767.96. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 1,229 shares in the company, valued at $709,329.64. This represents a 47.92 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 673,878 shares of company stock worth $416,269,904 in the last 90 days. 13.71% of the stock is owned by company 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.