Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target Cut to $525.00 by Analysts at Raymond James

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its target price lowered by Raymond James from $550.00 to $525.00 in a report issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a strong-buy rating on the social networking company’s stock.

Several other analysts have also issued reports on the company. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $435.00 to $575.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on Meta Platforms from $555.00 to $500.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $450.00 to $525.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, February 2nd. JMP Securities reiterated a market outperform rating and set a $550.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday. Finally, Guggenheim upped their target price on Meta Platforms from $380.00 to $520.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday, February 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, thirty-eight have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $509.18.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of Meta Platforms stock traded down $4.03 during trading on Thursday, hitting $437.35. The stock had a trading volume of 18,127,395 shares, compared to its average volume of 18,199,652. The business has a fifty day moving average of $495.08 and a two-hundred day moving average of $403.40. 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 firm has a market cap of $1.11 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.21, a PEG ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 1.20. Meta Platforms has a fifty-two week low of $229.85 and a fifty-two week high of $531.49.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 24th. The social networking company reported $4.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.32 by $0.39. The firm had revenue of $36.46 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $36.28 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 32.06% and a return on equity of 32.37%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 20.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 22nd were paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, February 21st. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.46%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 11.49%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 19,681 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $393.85, for a total transaction of $7,751,361.85. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 585 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.25, for a total value of $287,381.25. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 37,228 shares in the company, valued at $18,288,255. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 19,681 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $393.85, for a total transaction of $7,751,361.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 1,349,148 shares of company stock worth $649,552,559 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 13.75% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 186,349,346 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $65,960,215,000 after acquiring an additional 3,104,550 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew 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 worth $39,270,443,000 after buying an additional 5,001,647 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 2.5% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 38,054,513 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $13,469,906,000 after acquiring an additional 927,491 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its position in Meta Platforms by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 36,277,772 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,890,950,000 after buying an additional 1,184,978 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors increased its stake in Meta Platforms by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 34,738,470 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $12,296,383,000 after buying an additional 1,083,719 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% 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.