Robert W. Baird Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock Price

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price target reduced by equities research analysts at Robert W. Baird from $820.00 to $815.00 in a research report issued on Tuesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has an “outperform” rating on the social networking company’s stock. Robert W. Baird’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 22.20% from the company’s current price.

Several other research firms also recently commented on META. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $900.00 price objective (up previously from $750.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, November 24th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $950.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $840.00 to $810.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $840.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Benchmark lowered Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $820.22.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.3%

Shares of Meta Platforms stock opened at $666.94 on Tuesday. Meta Platforms has a 1-year low of $479.80 and a 1-year high of $796.25. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $656.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $706.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.98 and a quick ratio of 1.98. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.68 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.46, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.28.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.74 by $0.51. The firm had revenue of $51.24 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.34 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 39.35% and a net margin of 30.89%.Meta Platforms’s revenue was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $6.03 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 519 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $659.38, for a total transaction of $342,218.22. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 29,177 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,238,730.26. This represents a 1.75% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $661.11, for a total value of $341,793.87. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 12,717 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,407,335.87. This represents a 3.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 42,074 shares of company stock worth $26,359,548. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Meta Platforms

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $142,149,566,000 after purchasing an additional 1,532,568 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $64,158,971,000 after buying an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 608,429.2% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 59,775,823 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $44,119,937,000 after buying an additional 59,766,000 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.3% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $37,902,948,000 after buying an additional 682,768 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors increased its position in Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,247,690 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $28,823,375,000 after acquiring an additional 278,180 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Baird and other sell‑side analysts remain constructive (Baird reaffirmed “Outperform” with a high price target), supporting demand from long‑only funds positioning for AI monetization and ad recovery. Baird Outperform
• Positive Sentiment: Product/AI momentum: press and analyst pieces on Meta’s new “Mango” AI model and a noise‑reduction update for its AI glasses suggest continued product differentiation that could lift engagement and ad monetization over time. Mango AI model AI glasses update
• Positive Sentiment: Sektor/flow support: sector‑rotation chatter favors Communication Services (heavy weightings to Meta and Alphabet), which has attracted institutional flows into XLC and indirectly supports META’s sentiment. Sector rotation
• Neutral Sentiment: Market chatter is mixed: social‑media and QuiverQuant summaries highlight both optimism about ad recovery and concern over heavy AI spend and timing of returns; institutional repositioning data is noisy. QuiverQuant summary
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data in the feed shows effectively zero days to cover (likely a data artifact); not meaningful for current positioning unless revised.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory risk: Italy’s antitrust watchdog ordered Meta to suspend WhatsApp terms that could exclude rival AI chatbots — a material policy/regulatory development that could limit Meta’s control over WhatsApp integrations and affect product/AI strategies in Europe. Reuters: Italy order TechCrunch
• Negative Sentiment: Product/policy risks: reports that Meta is testing link limits/pay‑walls for URLs in Facebook posts may hurt creators and small business marketers — a potential headwind for engagement and ad demand if rolled out broadly. Inc: link limits MSN
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling: recent small disclosed sales by COO Javier Oliván and CLO Jennifer Newstead have been publicized — modest in size but sometimes interpreted negatively by short‑term traders. Oliván SEC filing Newstead SEC filing
• Negative Sentiment: Capital‑intensity concerns: commentators and videos are flagging Meta’s very large AI investments (debate around ~$75B scale) and the timing of returns — a persistent risk for margins and near‑term cash flow until monetization ramps. YouTube: AI bet discussion

About Meta Platforms

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.