Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Director Sells $374,680.00 in Stock

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) Director Robert Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $646.00, for a total transaction of $374,680.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,167 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,983,882. This trade represents a 8.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 0.9%

Meta Platforms stock opened at $658.77 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.66 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.39 and a beta of 1.28. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $659.76 and a 200-day moving average of $707.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.98 and a quick ratio of 1.98. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $479.80 and a one year high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The social networking company reported $7.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.74 by $0.51. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 39.35% and a net margin of 30.89%.The business had revenue of $51.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.34 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $6.03 earnings per share. Meta Platforms’s revenue was up 26.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 15th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 15th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.28%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Meta Platforms

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in META. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $142,149,566,000 after acquiring an additional 1,532,568 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 608,429.2% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 59,775,823 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $44,119,937,000 after buying an additional 59,766,000 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.3% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $37,902,948,000 after buying an additional 682,768 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,247,690 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $28,823,375,000 after buying an additional 278,180 shares in the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

More Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta is reported to be developing new multimodal AI — an image/video model codenamed “Mango” and a text model called “Avocado” targeted for H1‑2026, which could accelerate product differentiation and ad/engagement upgrades. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: U.S. federal action on AI (an executive order to create a national AI framework) is being viewed as a net positive for Big Tech — it could reduce a patchwork of state rules and lower compliance complexity for large platforms like Meta. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Wedbush trimmed its price target from $920 to $880 but kept an “outperform” rating — the cut tempers upside expectations but the firm still implies substantial upside vs. current levels. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Austrias Supreme Court ruled Meta’s personalized ad model unlawful and ordered sweeping user‑data access changes across the EU — this is a binding precedent that raises regulatory, compliance and revenue risk in Europe. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Several insiders (including General Counsel Jennifer Newstead and COO Javier Olivan) have sold blocks of shares in recent weeks — repeated insider sales can be perceived negatively by the market even if amounts are small relative to overall holdings. Read More. Read More.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on META. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $1,117.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Friday, December 5th. Citigroup restated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. DA Davidson set a $825.00 target price on Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $818.59.

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.