Slagle Financial LLC Has $292,000 Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Slagle Financial LLC reduced its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 9.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 499 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 51 shares during the quarter. Slagle Financial LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $292,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 191,198,005 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $111,948,344,000 after buying an additional 1,502,553 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 48,160,608 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $27,470,870,000 after purchasing an additional 698,884 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $19,949,512,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,251,766 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $8,344,552,000 after purchasing an additional 424,201 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in Meta Platforms by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,946,755 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $4,101,602,000 after acquiring an additional 186,728 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on META shares. KeyCorp cut their price target on Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $710.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. UBS Group increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $736.00 to $786.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Raymond James restated a “strong-buy” rating and issued a $800.00 price objective (up from $725.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Truist Financial boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $770.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $530.00 to $610.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $718.31.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 4.3 %

NASDAQ:META opened at $576.74 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $655.23 and its 200-day moving average is $608.48. The company has a quick ratio of 2.98, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $414.50 and a 12 month high of $740.91. The firm has a market cap of $1.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.11, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.17% and a net margin of 37.91%. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $5.33 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 14th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.36%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.78%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In related news, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 921 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $627.05, for a total transaction of $577,513.05. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 31,182 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,552,673.10. This trade represents a 2.87 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $603.98, for a total transaction of $21,695,565.58. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 584,823 shares of company stock worth $386,274,777. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms, Inc engages in the development of products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and wearables worldwide. It operates in two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The Family of Apps segment offers Facebook, which enables people to share, discuss, discover, and connect with interests; Instagram, a community for sharing photos, videos, and private messages, as well as feed, stories, reels, video, live, and shops; Messenger, a messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, communities, and businesses across platforms and devices through text, audio, and video calls; and WhatsApp, a messaging application that is used by people and businesses to communicate and transact privately.