Klingman & Associates LLC Acquires 570 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Klingman & Associates LLC increased its stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META - Free Report) by 14.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,618 shares of the social networking company's stock after purchasing an additional 570 shares during the period. Klingman & Associates LLC's holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $2,704,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 2,949,325 shares of the social networking company's stock valued at $1,726,859,000 after purchasing an additional 8,476 shares in the last quarter. Prossimo Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 39.6% in the 4th quarter. Prossimo Advisors LLC now owns 1,357 shares of the social networking company's stock worth $795,000 after purchasing an additional 385 shares during the last quarter. Schubert & Co raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 13.6% in the 4th quarter. Schubert & Co now owns 659 shares of the social networking company's stock worth $386,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares in the last quarter. Davidson Investment Advisors acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $237,000. Finally, Morton Brown Family Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 437.1% during the fourth quarter. Morton Brown Family Wealth LLC now owns 188 shares of the social networking company's stock worth $110,000 after buying an additional 153 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on META. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $650.00 to $800.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Raymond James reaffirmed a "strong-buy" rating and set a $800.00 target price (up from $725.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 30th. JMP Securities reissued a "market outperform" rating and issued a $750.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Pivotal Research raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $875.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities restated a "buy" rating and set a $811.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, January 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $719.26.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of Meta Platforms stock traded up $12.38 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $669.88. The company had a trading volume of 9,932,976 shares, compared to its average volume of 15,715,486. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $648.73 and a 200 day simple moving average of $594.06. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $414.50 and a 1-year high of $740.91. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The company has a market capitalization of $1.70 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.20.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) 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 last year, the firm earned $5.33 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of $0.525 per share. This is a boost from Meta Platforms's previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.31%. Meta Platforms's payout ratio is presently 8.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 3,523 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $701.10, for a total value of $2,469,975.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $577.49, for a total value of $238,503.37. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 19,166 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $11,068,173.34. This trade represents a 2.11 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 812,422 shares of company stock valued at $525,534,818 over the last three months. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company's stock.

Meta Platforms 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.