Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Stock Price Up 3.3% – Time to Buy?

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)’s share price traded up 3.3% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $558.33 and last traded at $556.71. 24,073,065 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 42% from the average session volume of 16,918,844 shares. The stock had previously closed at $539.03.

Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta’s core advertising business remains strong. Second-quarter revenue increased 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, while ad impressions, pricing, engagement and AI-powered recommendation tools continued to improve. Advantage+ advertising reportedly reached a $75 billion annualized run rate. Meta: Buy The AI Spending Panic
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts and investment commentators view the selloff as an opportunity, arguing that Meta’s advertising engine can fund its AI investments and that AI is already improving ad performance, personalization and user engagement. Meta also highlighted potential enterprise AI products, personal AI agents and new applications. Buy Meta’s Earnings Drop
• Positive Sentiment: Despite reductions, major firms retained bullish ratings and price targets, including UBS at $715, Baird at $750, Cantor Fitzgerald at $680 and Rosenblatt at $883. The targets imply substantial long-term upside if Meta converts AI spending into monetization. Meta Given New Price Target at Baird
• Neutral Sentiment: The earnings miss was partly affected by approximately $2.4 billion in legal charges and $1.2 billion in severance costs. Excluding these items, supporters argue that underlying profitability was healthier, but reported margins still declined.
• Negative Sentiment: Meta reported $6.18 in quarterly EPS, below expectations near $7.19, while free cash flow fell to only $784 million from $31.9 billion in operating cash flow as AI data-center capital expenditures surged. Investors remain unconvinced that the spending will generate adequate returns soon. Tech’s AI Buildout Has Ballooning Price Tag
• Negative Sentiment: Future AI-related lease obligations reached $279 billion, increasing concerns about balance-sheet commitments and execution risk. Additional legal and regulatory pressure includes a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that social-media companies harmed minors, plus an Indian police case involving Meta’s India chief over Facebook posts depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meta’s AI Splurge Lays Bare Its Compute Conundrum

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities reduced their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $1,015.00 to $883.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Wolfe Research reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $700.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $805.00 to $780.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 1st. Erste Group Bank raised shares of Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, DA Davidson decreased their price target on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $700.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have given a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $789.95.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 3.3%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.35 and a current ratio of 2.23. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $601.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $622.97. The company has a market cap of $1.41 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.93 and a beta of 1.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its 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 company had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.The firm’s revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $7.14 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.99 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 15th were issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.91%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 3,348 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $600.97, for a total value of $2,012,047.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 9,498 shares in the company, valued at $5,708,013.06. This trade represents a 26.06% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total value of $1,268,023.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 1,118 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $681,890.56. The trade was a 65.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 sold 39,325 shares of company stock worth $23,979,087 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Meta Platforms

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Auto Owners Insurance Co raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $69,502,379,000 after purchasing an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $22,152,075,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after buying an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its position in Meta Platforms by 488.1% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 5,466,595 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,608,445,000 after buying an additional 4,537,076 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 90,841,345 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $59,963,463,000 after buying an additional 4,395,763 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

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.