Custos Family Office LLC Acquires New Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Custos Family Office LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 524 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $307,000.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Seelaus Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.9% in the 4th quarter. Seelaus Asset Management LLC now owns 1,640 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $960,000 after acquiring an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Meredith Wealth Planning lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Meredith Wealth Planning now owns 1,873 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,097,000 after acquiring an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Maiden Cove Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Maiden Cove Capital LLC now owns 481 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $282,000 after acquiring an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Stephens Consulting LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Stephens Consulting LLC now owns 317 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $186,000 after acquiring an additional 16 shares during the last quarter. Finally, VeraBank N.A. lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. VeraBank N.A. now owns 1,954 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,144,000 after acquiring an additional 16 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $688.00 to $765.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $530.00 to $610.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Argus set a $775.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, February 4th. Finally, Pivotal Research upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $875.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Two research 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $718.31.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO Javier Olivan sold 4,706 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total transaction of $3,466,769.02. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 20,935 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,422,186.45. The trade was a 18.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 55,589 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $717.72, for a total transaction of $39,897,337.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 622,844 shares of company stock valued at $409,212,161. Corporate insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:META opened at $586.00 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.48 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.50, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $655.77 and its 200-day simple moving average is $604.56. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $414.50 and a fifty-two week high of $740.91.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $5.33 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. This is an increase from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.36%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 8.78%.

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.