Clough Capital Partners L P Sells 39,376 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Clough Capital Partners L P lessened its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 67.8% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 18,677 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 39,376 shares during the quarter. Clough Capital Partners L P’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $10,686,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of META. Keybank National Association OH raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 15.7% in the fourth quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 133,798 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $88,319,000 after acquiring an additional 18,169 shares in the last quarter. WMS Group LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth about $876,000. Consolidated Investment Group LLC grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 61.2% during the 4th quarter. Consolidated Investment Group LLC now owns 7,900 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $5,215,000 after acquiring an additional 3,000 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position 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 valued at $132,015,115,000 after purchasing an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Finally, Third View Private Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at about $27,789,000. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

More Meta Platforms News

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on META. Roth Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated a “neutral” rating and set a $725.00 target price (down from $825.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Citizens Jmp dropped their target price on Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $770.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Mizuho set a $750.00 target price on Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 16th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have issued a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $789.95.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 8.0%

NASDAQ:META opened at $539.03 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.30, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.25. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $520.26 and a 52 week high of $796.25. The company has a quick ratio of 2.35, a current ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $602.23 and a 200 day moving average of $623.44.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). The firm had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 34.81% and a net margin of 29.83%.Meta Platforms’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $7.14 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Meta Platforms 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 value of $5,589,088.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 can be accessed 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, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total value of $1,268,023.68. Following the sale, the insider owned 1,118 shares in the company, valued at $681,890.56. The trade was a 65.03% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 39,325 shares of company stock valued at $23,979,087 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 13.53% 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.