Wintrust Investments LLC Reduces Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Wintrust Investments LLC decreased its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 1.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 1,389 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 27 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up about 0.7% of Wintrust Investments LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 28th largest position. Wintrust Investments LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $813,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Howard Capital Management Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 17.9% during the third quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 1,652 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $946,000 after buying an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 6.5% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,368,361 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,928,185,000 after buying an additional 204,412 shares during the last quarter. United Bank grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 22.2% during the third quarter. United Bank now owns 5,569 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $3,188,000 after buying an additional 1,011 shares during the last quarter. Souders Financial Advisors grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 17.5% during the third quarter. Souders Financial Advisors now owns 7,308 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $4,183,000 after buying an additional 1,089 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Chase Investment Counsel Corp grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 8.3% during the third quarter. Chase Investment Counsel Corp now owns 18,662 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $10,682,000 after buying an additional 1,435 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

META has been the topic of a number of research reports. KeyCorp raised their price target on Meta Platforms from $700.00 to $750.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $630.00 to $705.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $530.00 to $610.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $750.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $660.00 to $725.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, thirty-five have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $719.26.

Meta Platforms Stock Up 2.9 %

META stock opened at $607.60 on Monday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $414.50 and a one year high of $740.91. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $658.01 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $603.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.54 trillion, a P/E ratio of 25.40, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 2.98 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The social networking company reported $8.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.75 by $1.27. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 37.91% and a return on equity of 38.17%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $5.33 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 EPS for the current year.

Meta Platforms Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This is a boost from Meta Platforms’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.35%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is currently 8.78%.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 413 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $590.00, for a total transaction of $243,670.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,927 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,576,930. The trade was a 2.25 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 5,060 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Saturday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $736.67, for a total transaction of $3,727,550.20. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer now owns 5,139 shares in the company, valued at $3,785,747.13. The trade was a 49.61 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 654,355 shares of company stock valued at $428,564,164 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 13.71% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Company Profile

Meta Platforms, Inc engages in the development of products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality headsets, and wearables worldwide. It operates in two segments, Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The Family of Apps segment offers Facebook, which enables people to share, discuss, discover, and connect with interests; Instagram, a community for sharing photos, videos, and private messages, as well as feed, stories, reels, video, live, and shops; Messenger, a messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, communities, and businesses across platforms and devices through text, audio, and video calls; and WhatsApp, a messaging application that is used by people and businesses to communicate and transact privately.