Montecito Bank & Trust Invests $2.67 Million in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Montecito Bank & Trust acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 3,635 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,669,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 608,429.2% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 59,775,823 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $44,119,937,000 after acquiring an additional 59,766,000 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at $23,155,393,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 73,443.1% in the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,417,003 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,212,506,000 after purchasing an additional 8,405,558 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after purchasing an additional 1,532,568 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 6,875 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Saturday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.46, for a total value of $4,190,037.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 88,370 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $53,857,980.20. This represents a 7.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.35, for a total transaction of $365,610.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 7,347 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,476,894.45. The trade was a 7.55% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 42,074 shares of company stock worth $26,478,698. 13.61% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on META. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, October 14th. DA Davidson set a $825.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, November 1st. Raymond James Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating and set a $825.00 price target (down previously from $900.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $915.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $818.59.

Key Stores Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta is reported to be developing new multimodal AI — an image/video model codenamed “Mango” and a text model called “Avocado” targeted for H1‑2026, which could accelerate product differentiation and ad/engagement upgrades. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: U.S. federal action on AI (an executive order to create a national AI framework) is being viewed as a net positive for Big Tech — it could reduce a patchwork of state rules and lower compliance complexity for large platforms like Meta. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Wedbush trimmed its price target from $920 to $880 but kept an “outperform” rating — the cut tempers upside expectations but the firm still implies substantial upside vs. current levels. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Austrias Supreme Court ruled Meta’s personalized ad model unlawful and ordered sweeping user‑data access changes across the EU — this is a binding precedent that raises regulatory, compliance and revenue risk in Europe. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Several insiders (including General Counsel Jennifer Newstead and COO Javier Olivan) have sold blocks of shares in recent weeks — repeated insider sales can be perceived negatively by the market even if amounts are small relative to overall holdings. Read More. Read More.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META opened at $658.77 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.66 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.98 and a quick ratio of 1.98. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $479.80 and a one year high of $796.25. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $659.76 and its 200 day moving average price is $707.02.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.74 by $0.51. The company had revenue of $51.24 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $49.34 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.89% and a return on equity of 39.35%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 26.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $6.03 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th will be given a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 15th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 9.28%.

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.