Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC Purchases 474 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 12.0% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,430 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 474 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for approximately 1.3% of Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest position. Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $2,594,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in META. JDM Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 3rd quarter valued at $36,000. Millstone Evans Group LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth $40,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $41,000. Finally, Cordant Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $59,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on META shares. Truist Financial upped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $770.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Scotiabank increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $583.00 to $627.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $800.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Tigress Financial reaffirmed a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $715.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $718.31.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 3.9 %

Shares of META stock opened at $619.55 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market cap of $1.57 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $655.60 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $607.11. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $414.50 and a 12-month high of $740.91.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same period last year, the company earned $5.33 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This is an increase from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.34%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 2,311 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, December 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $600.21, for a total transaction of $1,387,085.31. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 8,553 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total transaction of $6,300,738.51. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 51,793 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,154,349.31. This trade represents a 14.17 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 585,605 shares of company stock worth $386,710,448 over the last three months. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

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.