Primecap Management Co. CA Trims Stock Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Primecap Management Co. CA cut its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,010,840 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 6,690 shares during the quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $742,341,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 64.8% in the third quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on META. Wedbush upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $900.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $900.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, January 26th. Roth Mkm decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 26th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $849.00 to $856.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $860.00 price objective (up from $750.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $844.44.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Multiyear content-licensing agreement with News Corp provides paid training data and retrieval content for Meta’s AI tools, likely supporting AI product quality and potential revenue/licensing synergies. News Corp licensing deal
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is testing an AI-powered shopping research tool for its chatbot — a direct product push into commerce via AI that could expand monetization channels beyond ads. AI shopping tool test
• Positive Sentiment: Company is creating a new applied AI engineering org (flat structure, high IC:manager ratios) to speed up its superintelligence / Reality Labs AI work — signals continued R&D investment that supports long-term AI roadmap. Applied AI org
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are reassessing Meta’s valuation after a strong multi‑year run; some analyses describe the stock as reasonably priced given scale and profit margins — useful context for investors but not an immediate catalyst. Valuation analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Marketwide volatility (geopolitical tensions) is weighing on tech names broadly and could pressure META alongside peers; this is a macro headwind rather than company-specific news. Macro risk note
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) under a disclosed SEC filing; large insider sales can cause short-term investor concern even if executed via pre-set plans. SEC filing – insider sale
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages for thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector reports), a short-term engagement/reputation hit that could transiently pressure ad impressions and sentiment. Outage report
• Negative Sentiment: Reports say Meta scrapped its second‑generation Olympus AI accelerator program, highlighting execution risks in custom silicon and likely increasing dependence on external GPU suppliers (Nvidia/AMD) — strategic cost/partner implications. Chip program pullback

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META opened at $654.99 on Wednesday. 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 50 day moving average is $655.47 and its 200-day moving average is $682.76. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.66 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.30.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. The firm had revenue of $59.89 billion during 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%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $8.02 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business 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 $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 8.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,793,352.84. The trade was a 74.01% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total transaction of $370,724.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 5,007 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,200,374.26. The trade was a 10.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold 159,372 shares of company stock valued at $102,164,393 over the last ninety days. 13.61% of the stock is currently 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.