Clare Market Investments LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Clare Market Investments LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 4.0% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 30,901 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,180 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up approximately 4.5% of Clare Market Investments LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 5th largest holding. Clare Market Investments LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $22,693,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter valued at $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 64.8% in the 3rd quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after buying an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. 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. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wolfe Research reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $850.00 price objective (up from $800.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wedbush increased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group boosted their target price on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $930.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Three research 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.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $660.41 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a current ratio of 2.60. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $479.80 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. The stock has a market cap of $1.67 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.30. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $655.36 and a 200-day moving average of $682.50.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Signed a multiyear AI content‑licensing deal with News Corp that provides paid access to news content for training/retrieval — supports AI product quality and reduces legal/quality risk around training data. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Created a new applied AI engineering organization to speed model development and partner with its Superintelligence Lab — signals accelerated product rollout and continued R&D investment that can boost ad/product monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Erste Group upgraded META from “hold” to “buy”, adding a positive analyst catalyst that can support demand in the stock.
• Neutral Sentiment: Company presentation at Morgan Stanley TMT conference provided additional management commentary and analyst color — useful for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Arete Research reaffirmed a “neutral” rating, offering little directional pressure today.
• Negative Sentiment: Under EU antitrust pressure, Meta will allow rival AI chatbots onto WhatsApp in Europe (via its Business API) for a fee for the next 12 months — a concession that reduces immediate regulatory risk but highlights EU scrutiny and could erode WhatsApp exclusivity. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales disclosed this week — CFO Susan Li sold ~56,571 shares (~$36.5M) and COO Javier Olivan also sold shares — which can create headline pressure and short‑term selling even if plan‑driven. Read More. • Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/reputational pressure from Indonesia, which issued a “stern warning” over disinformation and gambling content and pressed for greater algorithm transparency — potential compliance costs or restrictions in a large market. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Operational risks surfaced: recent U.S. user outages (short‑term engagement/ad impression risk) and reports Meta scrapped its second‑generation Olympus AI chip effort — the latter could raise execution risk and greater reliance on external GPU suppliers. Read More. • Read More.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,461 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Sunday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $639.77, for a total value of $1,574,473.97. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 12,108 shares in the company, valued at $7,746,335.16. This represents a 16.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Company 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.