Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC Grows Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 34.2% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 52,252 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,311 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up about 1.0% of Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 13th biggest holding. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $38,373,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at approximately $23,155,393,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 73,443.1% during the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,417,003 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,212,506,000 after purchasing an additional 8,405,558 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after acquiring an additional 1,532,568 shares during the period. Finally, Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 103.5% during the second quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,998,624 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,475,166,000 after buying an additional 1,016,667 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Raymond James Financial lowered their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 26th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $785.00 to $820.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wall Street Zen cut Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 1st. Argus restated a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $825.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $845.50.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,610 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Saturday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.46, for a total transaction of $1,590,690.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 9,784 shares in the company, valued at $5,962,956.64. This represents a 21.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 726 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $591.60, for a total value of $429,501.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 6,035 shares in the company, valued at $3,570,306. This trade represents a 10.74% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 39,078 shares of company stock worth $24,016,453 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square disclosed a roughly $2 billion stake (~10% of the fund), calling META undervalued and an AI beneficiary — a high‑profile institutional endorsement that can attract other buyers and bolster the AI-growth narrative. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Meta announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.525 per share (payable March 26) — a formal return of capital that supports yield‑seeking investors and signals board confidence in cash flow. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Hardware traction: EssilorLuxottica reported it more than tripled sales of Meta AI (Ray-Ban) glasses in 2025 — evidence Reality Labs products can scale and begin to diversify revenue beyond advertising. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Data center expansion: Meta broke ground on a $10B Indiana data‑center (and another large campus reported elsewhere), strengthening long‑term AI compute capacity that underpins ad/AI initiatives. These are long‑horizon positives but raise near‑term capex. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares (~$343k) in a routine filing; the sale is small relative to total insider holdings and follows a pattern of periodic sales. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Russia block: Russian authorities removed WhatsApp from an official directory and effectively blocked access for ~100M users — a material engagement loss in that market and a nearer‑term revenue/MAU headwind. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Legal and reputational risk: Ongoing trials and testimony (including accusations that products enabled harm) increase litigation exposure and political/regulatory scrutiny that could lead to fines, restrictions or product changes. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Capex/FCF pressure: Coverage of the “Mag‑7” AI arms race highlights heavy industry capex and potential free‑cash‑flow strain — Meta’s big data‑center builds support growth but keep near‑term spending elevated. Article Title

Meta Platforms Price Performance

NASDAQ:META opened at $649.81 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $658.31 and its 200 day moving average is $693.94. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $479.80 and a 12 month high of $796.25. The company has a market capitalization of $1.64 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The firm’s revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $8.02 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th were paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.94%.

Meta Platforms 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.