Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Price Target Cut to $725.00 by Analysts at Jefferies Financial Group

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price target reduced by Jefferies Financial Group from $810.00 to $725.00 in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. Jefferies Financial Group currently has a buy rating on the social networking company’s stock.

A number of other research analysts also recently commented on META. Bank of America upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $765.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $630.00 to $705.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $770.00 target price (up from $700.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $670.00 to $775.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Pivotal Research lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $875.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $718.55.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $576.36 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.98. Meta Platforms has a 12 month low of $414.50 and a 12 month high of $740.91. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $654.50 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $610.25. The company has a market cap of $1.46 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $5.33 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th were given a $0.525 dividend. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.36%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.78%.

Insider Activity

In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 5,060 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total value of $3,727,550.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 5,139 shares in the company, valued at $3,785,747.13. The trade was a 49.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Christopher K. Cox sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $677.71, for a total transaction of $13,554,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 308,686 shares in the company, valued at approximately $209,199,589.06. This trade represents a 6.08 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 583,505 shares of company stock worth $385,495,911 in the last three months. 13.71% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Meta Platforms

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $19,949,512,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 78,471.1% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 6,248,763 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,658,713,000 after buying an additional 6,240,810 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth $2,243,603,000. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 13.5% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 23,445,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $13,727,613,000 after acquiring an additional 2,787,832 shares during the period. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,162,918,000. 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.