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

Vestmark Advisory Solutions Inc. decreased its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 39,761 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 3,045 shares during the period. 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 have also made changes to their positions in the company. Westerkirk Capital Inc. raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter. Westerkirk Capital Inc. now owns 24,254 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $17,812,000 after acquiring an additional 185 shares in the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 77,420 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $56,855,000 after buying an additional 2,586 shares during the last quarter. Adapt Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 418.2% in the 3rd quarter. Adapt Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,793 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $2,051,000 after buying an additional 2,254 shares during the period. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC UT boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 31.2% in the 3rd quarter. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC UT now owns 6,269 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $4,604,000 after buying an additional 1,489 shares during the period. Finally, Ellerson Group Inc. ADV bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter valued at about $209,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Meta Platforms News Summary

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 brokerages have commented on META. Raymond James Financial decreased their target price on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Evercore boosted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Pivotal Research lowered their price objective on Meta Platforms from $930.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $872.00 target price (up from $830.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating and set a $850.00 price target (up from $800.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $844.44.

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In related news, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $652.68, for a total transaction of $604,381.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 17,039 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,121,014.52. This trade represents a 5.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total value of $370,724.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 5,007 shares in the company, valued at $3,200,374.26. This represents a 10.38% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 103,837 shares of company stock valued at $66,356,760 in the last ninety days. 13.61% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $648.18 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $1.64 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.28. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $655.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $685.97. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $479.80 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released 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 firm had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. Meta Platforms’s quarterly revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $8.02 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

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