Intermede Investment Partners Ltd Boosts Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Intermede Investment Partners Ltd boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 5.5% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 172,152 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 8,909 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for 4.7% of Intermede Investment Partners Ltd’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest holding. Intermede Investment Partners Ltd’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $113,636,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after purchasing an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of 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 valued at $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Capital World Investors raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.7% in the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,247,690 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $28,823,375,000 after purchasing an additional 278,180 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 17,153,754 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $12,597,374,000 after purchasing an additional 142,229 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 4.1% in the third quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,332,168 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,525,258,000 after purchasing an additional 558,792 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

More Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street sentiment remains constructive, with analysts including RBC reiterating an outperform view and setting a higher price target, suggesting investors still see meaningful upside in Meta’s core ad and AI businesses.
• Positive Sentiment: A new study ranked Meta among the top S&P 500 companies adopting AI, reinforcing the market’s view that AI remains a key long-term growth driver for the company.
• Positive Sentiment: Meta also announced broader teen-safety controls and new Instagram features aimed at safer, more age-appropriate feeds, which may help ease concerns around user safety and regulation.
• Neutral Sentiment: Several articles highlighted Meta as a long-term growth or value stock, reflecting continued investor interest but not a clear near-term catalyst.
• Negative Sentiment: Meta is dialing back its plan to collect employee mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes for AI training after staff pushback, underscoring internal resistance to how aggressively the company is pursuing AI data collection. Exclusive: Meta scales back AI mouse clicks tool, citing employee concerns
• Negative Sentiment: Hackers reportedly tricked Meta’s AI chatbot into helping them access Instagram accounts, raising fresh concerns about product security and trust in Meta’s AI systems. They tricked Meta’s chatbot to hack into Instagram accounts. It’s a warning about how much we trust AI.
• Negative Sentiment: Meta continues to face regulatory and legal pressure over scam ads and child-safety issues, including coordinated European complaints and a proposed group legal action in the UK, which could add compliance costs and reputational risk.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 837 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $608.98, for a total value of $509,716.26. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 13,823 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,417,930.54. This trade represents a 5.71% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,847 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.83, for a total transaction of $4,769,642.01. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 414 shares in the company, valued at approximately $251,641.62. The trade was a 94.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold 40,890 shares of company stock valued at $25,315,558 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Down 0.5%

NASDAQ META opened at $597.63 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $617.71 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $636.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 2.35 and a quick ratio of 2.35. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $520.26 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.51 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.72, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.23.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The firm had revenue of $56.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.56 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $6.43 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 33.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 7.63%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on META shares. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $830.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Bank of America dropped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $885.00 to $820.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 20th. UBS Group lowered shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Friday, March 27th. Finally, Arete Research set a $735.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have given a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $840.60.

Meta Platforms 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.