BlueChip Wealth Advisors LLC Sells 509 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

BlueChip Wealth Advisors LLC decreased its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 28.9% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 1,254 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 509 shares during the quarter. BlueChip Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $734,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of META. Ballentine Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 58,218 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $34,087,000 after acquiring an additional 808 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 140,585 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $82,314,000 after purchasing an additional 897 shares in the last quarter. Brueske Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $459,000. Apollon Financial LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 11.1% in the fourth quarter. Apollon Financial LLC now owns 1,479 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $866,000 after purchasing an additional 148 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted 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 valued at $3,908,382,000 after purchasing an additional 110,040 shares in the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on META shares. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $753.00 to $780.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $583.00 to $627.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $660.00 to $725.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $630.00 to $705.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $718.31.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 921 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $627.05, for a total transaction of $577,513.05. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 31,182 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,552,673.10. This represents a 2.87 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 4,706 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 584,823 shares of company stock worth $386,274,777. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

META opened at $576.74 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.11, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a fifty day moving average of $655.23 and a 200 day moving average of $608.48. 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 quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 quarter last year, the business earned $5.33 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th were issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.36%. This is a boost from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.78%.

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.