Meta Platforms’ (META) Buy Rating Reiterated at Guggenheim

Guggenheim reissued their buy rating on shares of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) in a research note released on Tuesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have a $800.00 price target on the social networking company’s stock.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. TD Cowen dropped their price target on Meta Platforms from $820.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated a “neutral” rating and set a $725.00 price objective (down from $825.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Benchmark began coverage on Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Raymond James Financial increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $850.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, Susquehanna raised Meta Platforms from a “positive” rating to a “positive” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have given a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $789.95.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:META opened at $539.03 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $1.36 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.30, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 2.35 and a quick ratio of 2.35. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $602.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of $623.44. Meta Platforms has a one year low of $520.26 and a one year high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). The company had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 29.83% and a return on equity of 34.81%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $7.14 EPS. Research analysts predict that Meta Platforms will post 29.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 7.63%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,195 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.84, for a total transaction of $5,589,088.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares in the company, valued at $8,014,978.24. This trade represents a 41.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,847 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.83, for a total value of $4,769,642.01. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 414 shares in the company, valued at approximately $251,641.62. This represents a 94.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold 39,325 shares of company stock valued at $23,979,087 in the last quarter. 13.53% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $132,015,115,000 after acquiring an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% in the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $69,502,379,000 after purchasing an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 5.1% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 90,841,345 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $59,963,463,000 after purchasing an additional 4,395,763 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 52,806,712 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $34,734,628,000 after purchasing an additional 878,396 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,558,637 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $26,112,735,000 after purchasing an additional 310,947 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Revenue increased 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, exceeding Wall Street expectations, while advertising demand, impressions, pricing and AI-powered recommendations remained strong. Instagram time spent also grew by double digits. META’s Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates, Revenues Rise Y/Y on Ad Growth
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts retained bullish ratings despite reducing price targets. UBS, Baird, Citi, Truist and other firms still see substantial upside, suggesting the selloff may have improved Meta’s valuation appeal if advertising growth continues. Analyst price-target updates
• Positive Sentiment: Management said AI is improving ad performance, content recommendations and enterprise products, while new applications and potential AI-agent businesses could create additional monetization opportunities. META Q2 Earnings Call Highlights AI Expansion Strategy
• Neutral Sentiment: Meta is exploring ways to lease or sell excess computing capacity, including possible enterprise AI opportunities. This could generate revenue from infrastructure investment, but the company must balance external sales with its own model-development needs. Zuckerberg lays out Meta’s AI capacity dilemma
• Negative Sentiment: Adjusted earnings were $6.18 per share, well below estimates near $7.2 and down from $7.14 a year earlier. Legal expenses of about $2.4 billion and severance costs of roughly $1.2 billion contributed to the miss, but operating expenses also rose substantially.
• Negative Sentiment: Meta maintained an aggressive AI investment plan, forecasting 2026 capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion. Operating cash flow of $31.9 billion was almost entirely consumed by capital spending, leaving approximately $784 million after capex. Meta Generated $31.9 Billion in Operating Cash Flow Last Quarter
• Negative Sentiment: Future lease obligations, largely tied to AI data centers, rose 53% in three months to $279 billion. Investors are questioning whether advertising growth and future AI services will generate adequate returns on this commitment. Meta’s future AI data center lease obligations
• Negative Sentiment: Third-quarter revenue guidance of $61 billion to $64 billion was viewed as soft relative to the $63.2 billion consensus, reinforcing concerns that spending and margin pressure may persist. Reality Labs also posted a loss exceeding $4.6 billion.
• Negative Sentiment: Meta’s weakness contrasted with Microsoft’s strong Azure and Copilot results, which gave investors clearer evidence that AI spending is producing returns. This comparison intensified the market’s skepticism toward Meta’s less-defined AI monetization timeline. Meta tanks nearly 9%, Microsoft jumps 8% as the AI trade splits Big Tech

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.