US Bancorp DE Grows Stock Holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

US Bancorp DE increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 952,522 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 25,912 shares during the period. Meta Platforms makes up 0.8% of US Bancorp DE’s holdings, making the stock its 19th biggest position. US Bancorp DE’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $699,515,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 64.8% in the 3rd quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after purchasing an additional 35 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: News Corp signed a multiyear paid content?licensing deal with Meta that can supply training and retrieval content for Meta’s AI tools — a direct revenue/licensing relationship that improves AI data quality and reduces legal/content risk. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is forming a new applied AI engineering organization (flat structure, large IC:manager ratios) to accelerate model development in partnership with its Superintelligence Lab — signals sustained R&D investment and faster AI product iteration. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Reuters/Bloomberg reports Meta is testing an AI?powered shopping research tool for its chatbot, a potential new commerce revenue stream that could diversify monetization beyond ads. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Institutional buyers continue to accumulate META even as executives sell, which investors interpret as conviction from long?term funds — useful context but not an immediate fundamental change. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are re?assessing Meta’s valuation after its multi?year run; some view current multiples as reasonable given >20% revenue growth and strong margins — background for positioning rather than a catalyst. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader market volatility from geopolitical tensions is dragging tech stocks broadly and could pressure META episodically; this is a macro headwind, not company?specific. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) in a disclosed SEC filing. Large insider sales can spur short?term selling even if executed under prearranged plans. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages affecting thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector), a transient engagement/reputation hit that could briefly impact ad impressions. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Meta scrapped its second?generation Olympus AI accelerator highlight execution risks in custom silicon and likely increase reliance on external GPUs (Nvidia/AMD), with cost and supplier implications. Read More.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.2%

Shares of Meta Platforms stock opened at $654.99 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $655.47 and a 200 day moving average of $682.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a current ratio of 2.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.66 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.87, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.30. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $479.80 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $8.02 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 16th will be paid a $0.525 dividend. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is currently 8.94%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $1,117.00 to $1,144.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $825.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $930.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Meta Platforms from $849.00 to $856.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Pivotal Research reduced their price target on Meta Platforms from $930.00 to $910.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $844.44.

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In related news, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 580 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total value of $370,724.40. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 5,007 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,200,374.26. This represents a 10.38% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total transaction of $5,106,100.36. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 159,372 shares of company stock valued at $102,164,393 over the last quarter. 13.61% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.