Royal Bank of Canada Reiterates “Outperform” Rating for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Royal Bank of Canada reiterated their outperform rating on shares of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $740.00 price target on the social networking company’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on META. Argus set a $775.00 price target on Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Tigress Financial reissued a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Barclays cut their price target on Meta Platforms from $705.00 to $640.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $675.00 to $750.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on Meta Platforms from $655.00 to $690.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-seven have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $696.45.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 4.3 %

NASDAQ META opened at $597.02 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $575.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $603.80. Meta Platforms has a one year low of $442.65 and a one year high of $740.91. The firm has a market cap of $1.51 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The social networking company reported $6.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.33 by $1.10. The firm had revenue of $42.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $41.45 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $4.71 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th were given a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.35%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 8.19%.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $676.00, for a total transaction of $279,188.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 15,449 shares in the company, valued at $10,443,524. This trade represents a 2.60 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 902 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $713.32, for a total transaction of $643,414.64. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 27,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,607,740.16. This represents a 3.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 237,017 shares of company stock valued at $167,207,524 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Meta Platforms

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Inlight Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the first quarter valued at $25,000. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. Millstone Evans Group LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at about $40,000. Avondale Wealth Management bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $41,000. Finally, WealthTrak Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $43,000. Institutional investors own 79.91% 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.