Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Grows Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 8.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 16,981 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 1,355 shares during the quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $9,943,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Ballentine Partners LLC raised its position in Meta Platforms by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 58,218 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $34,087,000 after purchasing an additional 808 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. increased its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 140,585 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $82,314,000 after purchasing an additional 897 shares during the period. Brueske Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $459,000. Apollon Financial LLC boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 11.1% during the fourth quarter. Apollon Financial LLC now owns 1,479 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $866,000 after buying an additional 148 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 6,675,174 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $3,908,382,000 after buying an additional 110,040 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on META. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $800.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Citigroup upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $753.00 to $780.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. KeyCorp lowered their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $710.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. Tigress Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, Benchmark raised shares of Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $820.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $718.31.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:META opened at $576.74 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $655.23 and a 200-day simple moving average of $608.48. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $414.50 and a 52 week high of $740.91. The company has a market cap of $1.46 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.11, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. 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 (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 business posted $5.33 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.36%. This is an increase from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 8.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 55,589 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $717.72, for a total value of $39,897,337.08. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $589.16, for a total value of $243,323.08. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 17,514 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,318,548.24. The trade was a 2.30 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 584,823 shares of company stock worth $386,274,777 in the last quarter. 13.71% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.