Close Asset Management Ltd Decreases Stock Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Close Asset Management Ltd cut its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 5.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 36,967 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 2,290 shares during the quarter. Close Asset Management Ltd’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $27,144,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 34,551 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $20,230,000 after acquiring an additional 570 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 10.2% during the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 9,456 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,537,000 after purchasing an additional 875 shares during the period. Headwater Capital Co Ltd lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 294.7% during the first quarter. Headwater Capital Co Ltd now owns 150,000 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $86,454,000 after purchasing an additional 112,000 shares during the period. Dymon Asia Capital Singapore PTE. LTD. purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the second quarter worth approximately $213,000. Finally, Capital & Planning LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $322,000. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,461 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Sunday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $639.77, for a total value of $1,574,473.97. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 12,108 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,746,335.16. This represents a 16.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total value of $5,106,100.36. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares in the company, valued at $1,793,352.84. This trade represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254. Company insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Key Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: News Corp signed a multiyear AI content-licensing deal that gives Meta paid access to US/UK newsroom content for model training and retrieval — reduces legal risk around training data and improves quality of AI outputs. News Corp licensing deal
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is forming a new applied AI engineering organization (flat structure, close partnership with its Superintelligence Lab/Reality Labs) to speed model development — signals continued R&D investment that supports future AI product rollouts and monetization. Applied AI org
• Positive Sentiment: Reports say Meta is testing an AI-powered shopping research tool inside its chatbot — a direct move to expand commerce monetization beyond ads if rolled out at scale. AI shopping tool test
• Neutral Sentiment: Policy/power risk for data centers: the White House discussion on data-center self-supplied power and energy-cost pledges creates regulatory and capex uncertainty for operators (including hyperscalers). It’s a macro/legal issue rather than a Meta-specific earnings shock for now. Data center power policy
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are re‑examining Meta’s valuation after a strong multi‑year run; useful context for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Valuation analysis
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) in a disclosed SEC filing — large insider sales can spook retail investors even if done under pre-set plans. SEC filing – insider sale
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages for thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector/Reuters) — a short-term engagement and reputation hit that can transiently pressure ad impressions and sentiment. Outage report
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Meta scaled back parts of its custom “Olympus” AI accelerator program highlight execution risk and likely greater near‑term reliance on external GPU suppliers — a potential margin/capex and partner-concentration consideration. Chip program pullback

Meta Platforms Trading Up 1.9%

Meta Platforms stock opened at $667.73 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $655.49 and a 200 day moving average of $682.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.69 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.30. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The business had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 30.08% and a return on equity of 38.61%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $8.02 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 8.94%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on META. Truist Financial increased their price target on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $800.00 target price (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Bank of America boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $810.00 to $885.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $730.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $825.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

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.