Ibex Wealth Advisors Purchases 2,471 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Ibex Wealth Advisors increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 13.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 21,320 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,471 shares during the period. Meta Platforms makes up about 1.5% of Ibex Wealth Advisors’ portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest holding. Ibex Wealth Advisors’ holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $15,656,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 34,551 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $20,230,000 after purchasing an additional 570 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 10.2% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 9,456 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,537,000 after purchasing an additional 875 shares in the last quarter. Headwater Capital Co Ltd lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 294.7% during the first quarter. Headwater Capital Co Ltd now owns 150,000 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $86,454,000 after purchasing an additional 112,000 shares during the period. Dymon Asia Capital Singapore PTE. LTD. acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth about $213,000. Finally, Capital & Planning LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $322,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

META has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $910.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $800.00 price objective (up from $770.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Evercore raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Wedbush boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $900.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $880.00 to $920.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three equities 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 company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $844.44.

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.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Meta Platforms stock opened at $660.41 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $655.36 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $682.50. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $479.80 and a 12 month high of $796.25. The company has a market capitalization of $1.67 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 16th will be given a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.94%.

Insider Activity

In related news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,461 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 owned 12,108 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,746,335.16. The trade was a 16.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total value of $36,471,323.70. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254. 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.