Good Life Advisors LLC Buys 172 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Good Life Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 1.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 10,902 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 172 shares during the quarter. Good Life Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $3,859,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at $4,223,148,000. Morgan Stanley bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $4,072,543,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $1,796,633,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,731,491,000. Finally, FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 4.0% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 130,809,908 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $39,270,443,000 after purchasing an additional 5,001,647 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on META. JMP Securities increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $410.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $405.00 to $527.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $385.00 to $525.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Raymond James increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $450.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Finally, Wedbush increased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $420.00 to $520.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, thirty-nine have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $496.35.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of Meta Platforms stock traded down $8.28 on Thursday, hitting $485.58. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 15,062,981 shares, compared to its average volume of 17,904,395. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 2.67 and a current ratio of 2.67. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $202.54 and a 1 year high of $523.57. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $464.84 and a 200-day moving average price of $375.30. The company has a market capitalization of $1.24 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.21.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The social networking company reported $5.33 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.82 by $0.51. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 29.48% and a net margin of 28.98%. The business had revenue of $40.11 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $39.12 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.00 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 24.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 19.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 22nd were paid a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 21st. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 13.42%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In related news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 566 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $351.55, for a total value of $198,977.30. Following the sale, the insider now owns 36,984 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,001,725.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other Meta Platforms news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 566 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $351.55, for a total value of $198,977.30. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,984 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,001,725.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 19,681 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $351.47, for a total value of $6,917,281.07. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 1,504,435 shares of company stock valued at $703,629,367 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 13.75% 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.