Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC Purchases 13,430 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 356,637 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 13,430 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up about 1.5% of Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 4th largest position. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $204,153,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Meta Platforms by 0.9% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 13,827,565 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $7,915,451,000 after buying an additional 118,298 shares in the last quarter. LS Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Meta Platforms by 111.4% during the 3rd quarter. LS Investment Advisors LLC now owns 11,679 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $6,686,000 after purchasing an additional 6,155 shares in the last quarter. Gradient Investments LLC raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 8.9% in the second quarter. Gradient Investments LLC now owns 72,587 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $36,600,000 after buying an additional 5,953 shares during the last quarter. Cutter & CO Brokerage Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the third quarter. Cutter & CO Brokerage Inc. now owns 9,735 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,573,000 after buying an additional 65 shares during the period. Finally, Stanley Laman Group Ltd. boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 26.5% during the second quarter. Stanley Laman Group Ltd. now owns 1,678 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $846,000 after acquiring an additional 352 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Tigress Financial boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $575.00 to $645.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Guggenheim increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $600.00 to $665.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $690.00 to $719.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $600.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $570.00 to $650.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, thirty-five have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $634.71.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 0.8 %

Shares of META stock opened at $608.93 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.54 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.20. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $317.04 and a 1 year high of $619.90. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $577.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $530.51. The company has a current ratio of 2.73, a quick ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The social networking company reported $6.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.19 by $0.84. The firm had revenue of $40.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $40.21 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 35.60% and a net margin of 35.55%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 22.68 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 27th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 16th will be paid a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.33%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 9.42%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms

In other news, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 731 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $557.00, for a total transaction of $407,167.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,414 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,901,598. This represents a 17.64 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Jennifer Newstead sold 905 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $507.63, for a total value of $459,405.15. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 37,817 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,197,043.71. This represents a 2.34 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 142,160 shares of company stock worth $81,611,223. 13.71% of the stock is currently owned by 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.