Citigroup Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price objective raised by analysts at Citigroup from $753.00 to $780.00 in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “buy” rating on the social networking company’s stock. Citigroup’s price target suggests a potential upside of 13.18% from the stock’s current price.

META has been the subject of several other research reports. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $750.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $770.00 price target (up previously from $700.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $715.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Arete Research upgraded Meta Platforms to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 24th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-six have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $706.76.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $689.18 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.74 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.81, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.19. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $613.60 and its 200-day moving average price is $565.78. The company has a current ratio of 2.73, a quick ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. Meta Platforms has a 1-year low of $387.10 and a 1-year high of $710.79.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 39.74% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $5.33 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms will post 25.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.97, for a total transaction of $21,838,890.37. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 901 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $567.70, for a total transaction of $511,497.70. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 30,581 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,360,833.70. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 661,804 shares of company stock valued at $407,745,741. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in META. JDM Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter valued at about $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth approximately $41,000. Halpern Financial Inc. bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $46,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at approximately $49,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.