Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN Lowers Stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN lowered its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 6.1% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 805 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 52 shares during the period. Horizon Bancorp Inc. IN’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $594,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 608,429.2% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 59,775,823 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $44,119,937,000 after buying an additional 59,766,000 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 1st quarter valued at $2,990,544,000. Amundi raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 23.5% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 7,733,061 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $4,111,050,000 after purchasing an additional 1,470,070 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 8.8% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 15,575,962 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $8,977,361,000 after purchasing an additional 1,255,546 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Strs Ohio acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 1st quarter valued at $571,086,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on META. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $850.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $780.00 to $860.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $808.00 to $880.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $740.00 to $840.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $775.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $830.68.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of Meta Platforms stock opened at $716.91 on Friday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $479.80 and a 1 year high of $796.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 1.97. The company has a market capitalization of $1.80 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.96, a PEG ratio of 1.50 and a beta of 1.20. The company’s fifty day moving average is $746.75 and its two-hundred day moving average is $683.72.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The social networking company reported $7.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.75 by $1.39. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 39.99% and a return on equity of 39.33%. The company had revenue of $47.52 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $44.55 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $5.16 EPS. Meta Platforms’s revenue for the quarter was up 21.6% on a year-over-year basis. Meta Platforms has set its Q3 2025 guidance at EPS. Analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 29th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 22nd were issued a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 22nd. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 7.60%.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $713.34, for a total value of $368,796.78. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 8,992 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,414,353.28. The trade was a 5.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 519 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $707.85, for a total transaction of $367,374.15. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 28,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,381,832.90. The trade was a 1.77% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 214,182 shares of company stock valued at $164,933,323 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 13.61% 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.