Live Oak Investment Partners Decreases Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Live Oak Investment Partners cut its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 23.8% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 2,808 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 876 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for approximately 1.1% of Live Oak Investment Partners’ investment portfolio, making the stock its 23rd biggest holding. Live Oak Investment Partners’ holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $1,854,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vista Capital Partners Inc. increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Vista Capital Partners Inc. now owns 1,075 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $794,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Sentinel Pension Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Sentinel Pension Advisors LLC now owns 915 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $672,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Alpine Bank Wealth Management increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Alpine Bank Wealth Management now owns 4,301 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $3,159,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 454 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $334,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Forza Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Forza Wealth Management LLC now owns 402 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $295,000 after acquiring an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $765.00 to $770.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $820.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Pivotal Research decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $930.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Wolfe Research decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 10th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, May 2nd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have assigned a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $840.31.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 1.3%

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $612.88 on Thursday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $520.26 and a 52 week high of $796.25. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $628.12 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $646.01. The company has a quick ratio of 2.35, a current ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The company has a market cap of $1.55 trillion, a P/E ratio of 22.28, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 EPS 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 business had revenue of $56.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $55.56 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $6.43 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 33.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 30.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 16th were paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.63%.

Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Strong Q1 execution — analysts and coverage emphasize Meta’s beat on revenue and EPS and continued ad/margin strength, underpinning investor confidence in cash flow to fund AI investment. Meta: Keep Calm And Focus On Muse, Spark, And Record Revenue Growth
• Positive Sentiment: AI product roadmap — multiple reports (FT/Reuters) say Meta is building advanced, agentic personal AI assistants and consumer-facing agents, reinforcing the company’s long-term TAM for AI monetization. This helps justify heavy capex for AI infrastructure. Meta plans advanced ‘agentic’ AI assistant for users, FT reports
• Positive Sentiment: Capex demand signal from suppliers — a MarketBeat piece highlights Corning’s $6B supply deal with Meta as part of hyperscale optical contracts, signaling durable infrastructure spend that supports Meta’s AI buildout. Light Speed Returns: Corning Cashes In on NVIDIA Growth
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity — Meta COO Javier Olivan sold shares via a pre-arranged Rule 10b5‑1 plan (reported May 4), reducing his holdings; typical for planned programmatic selling and not an immediate red flag. SEC Filing: Javier Olivan ownership
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst moves — Mizuho trimmed its price target slightly (from $850 to $835) but kept an outperform view, reflecting continued bullishness despite higher AI spending and elevated valuation debate. Benzinga coverage
• Negative Sentiment: Copyright suits and publisher litigation — major publishers (Elsevier, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, etc.) filed suits alleging Meta used copyrighted works to train Llama; litigation could lead to damages or costly settlements and increases model deployment risk. Major publishers sue Meta for copyright infringement over AI training
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory & litigation pressure — Meta asked a judge to overturn a landmark social‑media addiction verdict and faces state actions seeking large damages; EU/Irish probes and potential orders on WhatsApp also raise compliance costs and uncertainty. Meta asks California judge to throw out landmark social media addiction verdict

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,778 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $629.45, for a total value of $1,748,612.10. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 10,557 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,645,103.65. This trade represents a 20.83% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 168,193 shares of company stock worth $107,642,717 in the last quarter. 13.61% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Meta Platforms Company 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.