Sanford C. Bernstein Raises Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target to $590.00

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price target upped by research analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein from $535.00 to $590.00 in a report issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “outperform” rating on the social networking company’s stock. Sanford C. Bernstein’s price objective points to a potential upside of 15.80% from the stock’s previous close.

META has been the topic of a number of other research reports. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $397.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $420.00 to $535.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $465.00 to $575.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $500.00 to $555.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $525.00 to $585.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, April 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, thirty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $519.53.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of META traded up $15.33 on Thursday, hitting $509.50. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 5,490,888 shares, compared to its average volume of 16,917,754. Meta Platforms has a fifty-two week low of $207.13 and a fifty-two week high of $531.49. The company has a market capitalization of $1.30 trillion, a PE ratio of 34.20, a PEG ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 2.67 and a quick ratio of 2.67. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $493.65 and a 200 day moving average price of $396.70.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The social networking company reported $5.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 quarter last year, the business earned $3.00 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 24.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms will post 20.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 19,681 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $381.77, for a total value of $7,513,615.37. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 10,956 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $473.28, for a total value of $5,185,255.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 76,398 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $36,157,645.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 19,681 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $381.77, for a total value of $7,513,615.37. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 1,440,278 shares of company stock valued at $684,796,490. Corporate insiders own 13.75% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Meta Platforms

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at $4,223,148,000. Morgan Stanley bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,072,543,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at $1,796,633,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $1,731,491,000. Finally, FMR LLC boosted its stake in 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

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.