Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC Acquires 87,842 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 14.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 716,911 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 87,842 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms comprises approximately 0.6% of Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest holding. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $473,716,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Westchester Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter worth about $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at about $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 64.8% during the third quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the period. Finally, Aster Capital Management DIFC Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at $71,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms

Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Meta is deepening its AI infrastructure and partnerships — Arm chose Meta as the launch customer for its first in‑house AGI CPU designed for data‑center AI workloads, signalling strong demand for Meta’s AI compute needs and potential optimization of its AI stack. Arm launches first own-brand chip with Meta as launch customer
• Positive Sentiment: Meta continues to bulk up AI talent and internal adoption: it recruited the Dreamer team to scale personalized AI agents and appointed CTO Andrew Bosworth to lead “AI for Work” initiatives, plus reports that a CEO “agent” is being tested — moves that should accelerate product development and productivity gains. Meta Recruits Dreamer Team to Scale Personalized AI Agents
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive: Erste Group upgraded META to Buy, citing the company’s AI investments and pricing power — a signal that some institutional investors view Meta’s AI strategy as a durable earnings driver. Erste Group Upgrades Meta (META) to Buy
• Neutral Sentiment: Meta is testing incentive programs to boost creator engagement (paying some influencers up to $3,000/month) — this could help engagement but is an incremental-cost experiment whose ROI is uncertain. Meta Will Pay Influencers Up to $3,000 Per Month
• Neutral Sentiment: Regulatory scrutiny of Big Tech/A.I. is ongoing: EU antitrust chiefs have met with major AI players including Meta, which keeps regulatory risk on investors’ radars but doesn’t yet imply immediate penalties. EU antitrust chief meets Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon CEOs
• Negative Sentiment: Landmark New Mexico verdict: a jury ordered Meta to pay $375M after finding the company failed to protect children on its platforms — this is a material reputational and legal hit and raises the risk of further state suits and regulatory scrutiny. Meta Ordered to Pay $375 Million Over Child Safety Violations
• Negative Sentiment: Deal uncertainty in China: reports say regulators have barred Manus co‑founders from leaving while reviewing Meta’s ~$2B acquisition, creating execution risk and potential delays or blocking of the deal. China bars Manus co-founders from leaving country as it reviews sale to Meta
• Negative Sentiment: Executive pay and retention moves have drawn scrutiny: Meta granted RSUs and aggressive stock‑option packages tied to very high share‑price targets (reports say the plan targets a $9T valuation), which investors may view as dilutive or poorly timed despite management’s stated goal to retain AI talent. Meta Targets $9 Trillion Value With AI-Driven Exec Pay Plan
• Negative Sentiment: Operational and workforce noise: employees in some groups were told to work remotely amid looming layoffs and a discrimination lawsuit alleges age targeting in cuts — potential execution and morale headwinds. Some Meta employees were told to work remotely for the day as layoffs loom

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 160,929 shares of company stock valued at $103,074,540 over the last three months. 13.61% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $935.00 to $945.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 18th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $849.00 to $856.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $825.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $1,117.00 to $1,144.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $846.63.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $592.92 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.50 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.23, a PEG ratio of 0.93 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $647.70 and a 200 day simple moving average of $670.27. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $479.80 and a 52 week high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $8.02 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.94%.

Meta Platforms Company Profile

Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.

Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.