Cathy Pareto & Associates Inc. Buys New Stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Cathy Pareto & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,205 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $705,000.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of META. JDM Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Halpern Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $46,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $49,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on META shares. Roth Mkm increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $620.00 to $635.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Raymond James reiterated a “strong-buy” rating and set a $800.00 target price (up previously from $725.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $590.00 to $663.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and set a $750.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $670.00 to $775.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-six have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $706.76.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

NASDAQ:META opened at $687.00 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.73, a quick ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.73 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.36, a PEG ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.19. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $611.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $564.44. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a twelve month low of $387.10 and a twelve month high of $710.79.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 35.55% and a return on equity of 35.60%. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $5.33 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 22.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Monday, December 16th were issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 16th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.29%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 9.42%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $562.77, for a total value of $232,424.01. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 19,579 shares in the company, valued at $11,018,473.83. The trade was a 2.07 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $673.57, for a total transaction of $24,195,307.97. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 661,804 shares of company stock worth $407,745,741. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.