Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target Raised to $750.00

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price objective boosted by Evercore ISI from $725.00 to $750.00 in a report issued on Thursday, Marketbeat reports. Evercore ISI currently has an outperform rating on the social networking company’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on META. JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and set a $750.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Wednesday. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $655.00 to $690.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Guggenheim decreased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $675.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. Susquehanna boosted their target price on Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $800.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $846.00 to $918.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-seven have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $696.45.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 4.3 %

Meta Platforms stock opened at $597.02 on Thursday. 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 firm’s fifty day moving average price is $575.29 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $603.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.51 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.24. Meta Platforms has a 1-year low of $442.65 and a 1-year high of $740.91.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The social networking company reported $6.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.33 by $1.10. The business had revenue of $42.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $41.45 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 16.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $4.71 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th were paid a $0.525 dividend. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.35%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.19%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Meta Platforms news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 12,975 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $706.72, for a total value of $9,169,692.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 172,046 shares in the company, valued at $121,588,349.12. This trade represents a 7.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 608 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $488.18, for a total value of $296,813.44. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 5,622 shares in the company, valued at $2,744,547.96. This trade represents a 9.76 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 237,017 shares of company stock worth $167,207,524. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Meta Platforms

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of META. Inlight Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Millstone Evans Group LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Avondale Wealth Management purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, WealthTrak Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter worth $43,000. Institutional investors 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.