Lifeworks Advisors LLC Grows Stock Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Lifeworks Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 18.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,860 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 288 shares during the quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $1,089,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. JDM Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $41,000. Cordant Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $59,000. Finally, Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $70,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on META shares. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $811.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $670.00 to $775.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Bank of America upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $765.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Argus set a $775.00 price target on Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $720.00 to $790.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $719.26.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 4.7 %

Shares of META stock opened at $590.64 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $657.96 and a 200 day simple moving average of $602.00. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $414.50 and a fifty-two week high of $740.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.50 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.69, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced 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 return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $5.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $629.56, for a total transaction of $260,008.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 18,340 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,546,130.40. This represents a 2.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 22,035 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $618.63, for a total value of $13,631,512.05. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 690,689 shares of company stock valued at $451,269,409 over the last three months. Insiders own 13.71% 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.