Meta Platforms, Inc. $META Stock Holdings Raised by Banco Santander S.A.

Banco Santander S.A. boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 282,739 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,738 shares during the period. Meta Platforms makes up 1.8% of Banco Santander S.A.’s holdings, making the stock its 8th largest holding. Banco Santander S.A.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $207,638,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 34,551 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $20,230,000 after buying an additional 570 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 10.2% in the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 9,456 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,537,000 after acquiring an additional 875 shares in the last quarter. Headwater Capital Co Ltd boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 294.7% during the 1st quarter. Headwater Capital Co Ltd now owns 150,000 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $86,454,000 after acquiring an additional 112,000 shares during the last quarter. Dymon Asia Capital Singapore PTE. LTD. purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth about $213,000. Finally, Capital & Planning LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the second quarter worth approximately $322,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on META. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $1,117.00 to $1,144.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $810.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $785.00 to $820.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $840.00 to $880.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Truist Financial raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

NASDAQ META opened at $667.73 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $655.49 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $682.65. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $479.80 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The firm has a market cap of $1.69 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.41, a PEG ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 firm had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $8.02 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $400,805.09. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 2,828 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,802,029.88. This trade represents a 18.19% 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, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total transaction of $370,724.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 5,007 shares in the company, valued at $3,200,374.26. The trade was a 10.38% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock worth $103,155,254. 13.61% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.