Meta Platforms, Inc. $META Shares Sold by Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc.

Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 7.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 39,761 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 3,045 shares during the quarter. Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $29,200,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at $30,000. Briaud Financial Planning Inc acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at $42,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth about $44,000. Finally, WFA Asset Management Corp boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 42.6% in the 2nd quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 67 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $49,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Reported multiyear deal to rent Google’s TPU chips to accelerate model training — expands Meta’s compute capacity quickly without buying all hardware, supporting AI roadmap and ad/AI monetization prospects. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Deal with AMD for GPUs and plans for very large 2026 capex (reported commitments and nuclear power pacts) strengthen Meta’s in‑house training scale and long‑term AI competitiveness, which investors view as revenue‑accretive over time. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is trialing stablecoin payments across Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, targeting faster payments and adoption in underbanked markets — a potential new revenue stream and higher engagement in emerging markets. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Company sued advertisers over celebrity‑impersonation scams and took technical enforcement actions — a move to shore up ad quality and preserve advertiser trust. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI hired a high‑profile Meta AI researcher — talent movement highlights competition for AI engineers but is common across the sector and not unique to Meta. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst/industry comparisons show Alphabet gaining share in AI‑fuelled search and investing aggressively — useful context for competitive positioning but not an immediate earnings event. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: EU court adviser sided with regulators in a dispute over antitrust data requests — raises regulatory/compliance risk and potential costs in Europe. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: High‑profile US trial testimony about social‑media harms and new Instagram parent‑alert policies keep litigation and reputational risk elevated, which can pressure sentiment and regulatory scrutiny. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales by CFO Susan Li (55,702 shares) and recent COO selling may be read negatively by some investors, adding near‑term selling pressure despite common non‑signal reasons for sales; SEC filing available. Read More.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on META. Truist Financial upped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Arete Research set a $718.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Raymond James Financial cut their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating and set a $850.00 price objective (up from $800.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $810.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three equities research 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. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $844.44.

Insider Activity

In other Meta Platforms news, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $646.00, for a total transaction of $374,680.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 6,167 shares in the company, valued at $3,983,882. The trade was a 8.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 55,702 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $633.61, for a total value of $35,293,344.22. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,354,781.46. This trade represents a 80.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 103,837 shares of company stock worth $66,356,760. 13.61% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.3%

Shares of META opened at $648.18 on Friday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $479.80 and a 12 month high of $796.25. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $655.83 and its two-hundred day moving average is $685.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.60 and a quick ratio of 2.60. The stock has a market cap of $1.64 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.28.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The business had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The company’s revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $8.02 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 8.94%.

About Meta Platforms

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.