Wedbush Reaffirms Outperform Rating for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reaffirmed by investment analysts at Wedbush in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,RTT News reports. They presently have a $920.00 target price on the social networking company’s stock. Wedbush’s price target suggests a potential upside of 41.90% from the stock’s previous close. Wedbush also issued estimates for Meta Platforms’ Q3 2025 earnings at $6.72 EPS, Q4 2025 earnings at $7.99 EPS, FY2025 earnings at $28.27 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $30.40 EPS.

A number of other research analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Scotiabank lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $685.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their price objective on Meta Platforms from $920.00 to $830.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, October 14th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $875.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Finally, Pivotal Research lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $830.00 to $930.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-seven have assigned a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $827.60.

Meta Platforms Stock Down 2.7%

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $648.35 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $1.63 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.64, a PEG ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.20. The business has a fifty day moving average of $738.28 and a two-hundred day moving average of $696.73. Meta Platforms has a 52-week low of $479.80 and a 52-week high of $796.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 1.98.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 39.35% and a net margin of 30.89%.The business’s revenue was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $6.03 earnings per share. Meta Platforms has set its Q4 2025 guidance at EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $749.57, for a total transaction of $387,527.69. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 7,958 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,965,078.06. The trade was a 6.10% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 519 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $753.00, for a total value of $390,807.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 27,756 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $20,900,268. This represents a 1.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 198,335 shares of company stock valued at $153,047,009. 13.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Meta Platforms

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position 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 buying an additional 1,532,568 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.9% during 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 buying an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its position 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 worth $44,119,937,000 after buying an additional 59,766,000 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $37,902,948,000 after buying an additional 682,768 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth about $23,155,393,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by 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.