Birch Capital Management LLC Buys Shares of 160 Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Birch Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 160 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $94,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. JDM Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the third quarter worth approximately $36,000. Halpern Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $46,000. West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the third quarter worth approximately $49,000. Finally, Hoese & Co LLP grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 2,000.0% during the 3rd quarter. Hoese & Co LLP now owns 105 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $60,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $715.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. JMP Securities increased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $660.00 to $750.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Guggenheim boosted their target price on Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $665.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Bank of America upped their price target on Meta Platforms from $630.00 to $660.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $590.00 to $663.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $645.80.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.4 %

META traded down $8.58 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $621.62. The stock had a trading volume of 8,334,574 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,651,547. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $352.05 and a 1-year high of $638.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.57 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 2.73 and a quick ratio of 2.73. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $590.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $550.47.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The social networking company reported $6.03 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.19 by $0.84. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 35.60% and a net margin of 35.55%. The company had revenue of $40.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $40.21 billion. As a group, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 22.68 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 16th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.32%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 16th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 9.42%.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $603.98, for a total value of $21,695,565.58. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 18,644 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $553.55, for a total value of $10,320,386.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 46,769 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $25,888,979.95. This represents a 28.50 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 361,640 shares of company stock valued at $219,037,690. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Meta Platforms Company Profile

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.