GCQ FUNDS MANAGEMENT PTY Ltd Sells 1,212 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

GCQ FUNDS MANAGEMENT PTY Ltd cut its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 3.4% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 34,521 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 1,212 shares during the period. Meta Platforms makes up about 3.9% of GCQ FUNDS MANAGEMENT PTY Ltd’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th biggest position. GCQ FUNDS MANAGEMENT PTY Ltd’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $25,352,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.8% in 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 buying an additional 1,532,568 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.9% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $64,158,971,000 after acquiring an additional 1,650,435 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.3% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 51,575,209 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $37,902,948,000 after acquiring an additional 682,768 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter worth approximately $23,155,393,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,489,621 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,694,644,000 after purchasing an additional 262,550 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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: Multiyear content-licensing agreement with News Corp provides paid training data and retrieval content for Meta’s AI tools, likely supporting AI product quality and potential revenue/licensing synergies. News Corp licensing deal
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is testing an AI-powered shopping research tool for its chatbot — a direct product push into commerce via AI that could expand monetization channels beyond ads. AI shopping tool test
• Positive Sentiment: Company is creating a new applied AI engineering org (flat structure, high IC:manager ratios) to speed up its superintelligence / Reality Labs AI work — signals continued R&D investment that supports long-term AI roadmap. Applied AI org
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are reassessing Meta’s valuation after a strong multi?year run; some analyses describe the stock as reasonably priced given scale and profit margins — useful context for investors but not an immediate catalyst. Valuation analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Marketwide volatility (geopolitical tensions) is weighing on tech names broadly and could pressure META alongside peers; this is a macro headwind rather than company-specific news. Macro risk note
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) under a disclosed SEC filing; large insider sales can cause short-term investor concern even if executed via pre-set plans. SEC filing – insider sale
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages for thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector reports), a short-term engagement/reputation hit that could transiently pressure ad impressions and sentiment. Outage report
• Negative Sentiment: Reports say Meta scrapped its second?generation Olympus AI accelerator program, highlighting execution risks in custom silicon and likely increasing dependence on external GPU suppliers (Nvidia/AMD) — strategic cost/partner implications. Chip program pullback

Meta Platforms Stock Up 0.2%

Shares of NASDAQ META opened at $654.99 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.66 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.60 and a quick ratio of 2.60. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $655.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $682.76. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $479.80 and a 1 year high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $8.02 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be given a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 16th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 8.94%.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction on Monday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $652.68, for a total value of $604,381.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 17,039 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,121,014.52. The trade was a 5.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total value of $36,471,323.70. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 159,372 shares of company stock worth $102,164,393 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have issued reports on META. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $1,117.00 to $1,144.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $710.00 to $730.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $810.00 to $885.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $900.00 price target on Meta Platforms in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $844.44.

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.