Vista Investment Partners LLC Acquires 1,808 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Vista Investment Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 162.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,923 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,808 shares during the quarter. Vista Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $1,930,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vista Capital Partners Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $794,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Trust Co of the South raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the 3rd quarter. Trust Co of the South now owns 1,850 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,359,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the period. Sentinel Pension Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Sentinel Pension Advisors LLC now owns 915 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $672,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the period. Alpine Bank Wealth Management raised its stake in shares of 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 valued at $3,159,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the period. Finally, Valued Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 454 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $334,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta unveiled Muse Spark, the first model from its Superintelligence Labs — positioned as a natively multimodal reasoning system with multi-agent orchestration and faster rollouts across Meta AI, apps, and upcoming devices; investors view this as a concrete step to close the gap with peers and boost AI-driven ad products. Meta unveils first AI model from superintelligence team (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Market-wide rally after a temporary Iran ceasefire lifted tech stocks broadly — as a Magnificent Seven heavyweight, META benefitted from sector flows and reduced macro risk premium. Tech stocks rally after Iran ceasefire (CNBC)
• Positive Sentiment: OpenAI’s shutdown of Sora removes a direct short-form-video challenger, reinforcing the economics of Meta’s integrated Reels approach (AI+human content inside an existing ad engine) and lowering competitive risk to Reels monetization. OpenAI Shutters Sora: A Win for Meta Platforms (MarketBeat)
• Positive Sentiment: Reports of strong ad-revenue growth and partnerships (including a PayPal tie-up noted by some outlets) are renewing confidence that Meta’s core monetization can accelerate alongside AI product upgrades. Ad growth and PayPal partnership boost (247wallst)
• Neutral Sentiment: Early analyst/market positioning remains constructive: high hedge-fund ownership and bullish consensus price targets imply upside expectations, but these are already partly priced into the multiple. Hedge fund ownership and analyst optimism (InsiderMonkey)
• Neutral Sentiment: Coverage of Muse Spark is mixed — outlets note meaningful improvements vs. Meta’s prior models but also weaknesses (e.g., coding performance still trails top rivals), so execution and benchmarks will matter for sustained upside. Muse Spark review and limitations (NYT)
• Negative Sentiment: An analyst downgrade to “Hold” and continuing investor concerns about heavy AI spending, layoff headlines, and legal exposures remain near-term risk factors that could cap gains if execution or margins disappoint. Analyst downgrades Meta to Hold (Yahoo Finance)

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently commented on META. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $775.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 30th. Roth Mkm cut their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $808.00 to $890.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $800.00 target price (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have assigned a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $843.57.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $632.02, for a total value of $366,571.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 4,427 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,797,952.54. The trade was a 11.58% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $605.38, for a total transaction of $560,581.88. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 13,335 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,072,742.30. The trade was a 6.49% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 160,931 shares of company stock valued at $102,997,526 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $612.42 on Thursday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The company has a market capitalization of $1.55 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.89 and a beta of 1.31. 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 firm’s fifty day moving average price is $632.71 and its 200 day moving average price is $655.87.

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

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

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

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.