Argent Advisors Inc. Invests $386,000 in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Argent Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 659 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $386,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. JDM Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Avondale Wealth Management acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,000. Cordant Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter worth approximately $59,000. Finally, Bear Mountain Capital Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at $70,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have issued reports on META. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $680.00 to $750.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. DA Davidson raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $800.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $660.00 to $725.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Meta Platforms from $530.00 to $610.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $811.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $718.31.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $586.00 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $655.77 and a 200-day simple moving average of $604.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.98. The company has a market cap of $1.48 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $414.50 and a 12 month high of $740.91.

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

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a $0.525 dividend. This is a positive change from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.36%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 8.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 4,706 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total transaction of $3,466,769.02. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 20,935 shares in the company, valued at $15,422,186.45. This represents a 18.35 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $604.46, for a total transaction of $21,712,807.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 622,844 shares of company stock worth $409,212,161. 13.71% of the stock is 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.