Kestra Investment Management LLC Decreases Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Kestra Investment Management LLC reduced its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 28.0% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 14,395 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 5,604 shares during the period. Kestra Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $10,625,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after acquiring an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the last quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its position 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 acquiring an additional 59,766,000 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.3% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $37,902,948,000 after purchasing an additional 682,768 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $23,155,393,000. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

META has been the topic of a number of research reports. KeyCorp cut their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $905.00 to $875.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Mizuho cut their price objective on Meta Platforms from $925.00 to $815.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Meta Platforms from $950.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, October 14th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, November 1st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $819.46.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 11,690 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $593.31, for a total value of $6,935,793.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,415 shares in the company, valued at $1,432,843.65. The trade was a 82.88% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 519 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $664.16, for a total transaction of $344,699.04. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 30,215 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,067,594.40. This trade represents a 1.69% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 41,959 shares of company stock valued at $26,578,191 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META stock opened at $644.23 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a current ratio of 1.98. The company has a market capitalization of $1.62 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.28. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $479.80 and a one year high of $796.25. The company’s 50-day moving average is $665.92 and its 200 day moving average is $707.24.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.74 by $0.51. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.89% and a return on equity of 39.35%. The firm had revenue of $51.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $49.34 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $6.03 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th will be given a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.28%.

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.