Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock Price Expected to Rise, TD Cowen Analyst Says

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) had its price objective lifted by analysts at TD Cowen from $810.00 to $820.00 in a research report issued on Tuesday. The firm presently has a “buy” rating on the social networking company’s stock. TD Cowen’s target price points to a potential upside of 30.77% from the stock’s previous close.

META has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Oppenheimer cut shares of Meta Platforms from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on Meta Platforms from $802.00 to $795.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $800.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 30th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $915.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America reduced their target price on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $810.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $822.96.

Meta Platforms Stock Performance

Shares of META stock traded down $14.91 on Tuesday, hitting $627.06. The company had a trading volume of 3,367,115 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,078,379. Meta Platforms has a twelve month low of $479.80 and a twelve month high of $796.25. The company has a quick ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The firm has a market cap of $1.58 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $641.35 and a 200-day moving average price of $702.93.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.74 by $0.51. The company had revenue of $51.24 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $49.34 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 39.35% and a net margin of 30.89%.Meta Platforms’s quarterly revenue was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $6.03 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Meta Platforms will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 600 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Monday, November 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $609.35, for a total transaction of $365,610.00. Following the sale, the director owned 7,347 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,476,894.45. The trade was a 7.55% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,610 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Saturday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.46, for a total transaction of $1,590,690.60. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 9,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,962,956.64. The trade was a 21.06% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 40,519 shares of company stock worth $25,133,331 in the last quarter. 13.61% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Meta Platforms

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth $30,000. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 237.5% in the second quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 54 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $40,000 after buying an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Briaud Financial Planning Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at $42,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth about $44,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: New leadership appointment — Meta named Dina Powell McCormick as president and vice chair, a hire investors view as strengthening corporate, policy and deal‑making capabilities to execute its AI/compute strategy. Dina Powell McCormick joins Meta (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Cost discipline in Reality Labs — Meta plans to cut ~10% (reports up to 15% in some accounts) of Reality Labs staff and pull back Metaverse spending, which should improve near‑term margins and free capital for AI priorities. Meta plans to cut Reality Labs staff (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Securing energy for AI — Meta is prepaying and partnering on large nuclear projects (Oklo and others) to lock baseload power for its data centers, reducing a major operational risk for large‑scale AI compute. That deal de‑risks long‑term AI capacity growth. Oklo stock jumps as Meta prepays for nuclear project (Blockonomi)
• Neutral Sentiment: Meta Compute and AI infrastructure push — CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta Compute and plans for gigawatt‑scale capacity. Strategically important long term but entails very large near‑term CapEx that will keep capital intensity high. Meta to build gigawatt-scale computing capacity (Reuters)
• Neutral Sentiment: Workforce and pay program changes — Meta introduced a new Checkpoint performance program (higher rewards for top performers), which may help retention/execution but has limited immediate market impact. Meta shakes up performance review system (Business Insider)
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory risk in Brazil — Brazil’s competition authority ordered WhatsApp to suspend terms that barred third‑party AI chatbots and opened an investigation into whether the policy is anti‑competitive; this raises compliance and product headwinds for WhatsApp Business revenue/strategy in a large market. Brazil orders Meta to suspend chatbot ban on WhatsApp (TechCrunch)
• Negative Sentiment: Australia enforcement and account removals — Meta removed ~550,000 accounts to comply with Australia’s under‑16 social‑media ban and is publicly pushing back on the policy; regulatory friction and user‑base disruptions can pressure engagement and lead to additional compliance costs. Meta warns Australia’s under-16 ban isn’t effective (Yahoo)

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.