Hohimer Wealth Management LLC Cuts Stock Position in Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Hohimer Wealth Management LLC trimmed its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 18.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 9,622 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 2,145 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for approximately 1.0% of Hohimer Wealth Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 13th biggest position. Hohimer Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $7,066,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Westchester Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Spurstone Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the second quarter worth $59,000. Finally, Evergreen Private Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 64.8% in the third quarter. Evergreen Private Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Meta Platforms Price Performance

META stock opened at $667.73 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $655.49 and a 200 day moving average price of $682.65. The stock has a market cap of $1.69 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.41, a PEG ratio of 1.02 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. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. 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 (DPR) is currently 8.94%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

META has been the topic of several analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $900.00 price objective (up from $870.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Zacks Research lowered Meta Platforms from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 18th. KeyCorp decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $875.00 to $835.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 26th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $910.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: News Corp signed a multiyear AI content-licensing deal that gives Meta paid access to US/UK newsroom content for model training and retrieval — reduces legal risk around training data and improves quality of AI outputs. News Corp licensing deal
• Positive Sentiment: Meta is forming a new applied AI engineering organization (flat structure, close partnership with its Superintelligence Lab/Reality Labs) to speed model development — signals continued R&D investment that supports future AI product rollouts and monetization. Applied AI org
• Positive Sentiment: Reports say Meta is testing an AI-powered shopping research tool inside its chatbot — a direct move to expand commerce monetization beyond ads if rolled out at scale. AI shopping tool test
• Neutral Sentiment: Policy/power risk for data centers: the White House discussion on data-center self-supplied power and energy-cost pledges creates regulatory and capex uncertainty for operators (including hyperscalers). It’s a macro/legal issue rather than a Meta-specific earnings shock for now. Data center power policy
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and outlets are re?examining Meta’s valuation after a strong multi?year run; useful context for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Valuation analysis
• Negative Sentiment: CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares (~$36.5M) in a disclosed SEC filing — large insider sales can spook retail investors even if done under pre-set plans. SEC filing – insider sale
• Negative Sentiment: Facebook experienced outages for thousands of U.S. users (Downdetector/Reuters) — a short-term engagement and reputation hit that can transiently pressure ad impressions and sentiment. Outage report
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Meta scaled back parts of its custom “Olympus” AI accelerator program highlight execution risk and likely greater near?term reliance on external GPU suppliers — a potential margin/capex and partner-concentration consideration. Chip program pullback

Insider Activity at Meta Platforms

In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $400,805.09. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 2,828 shares in the company, valued at $1,802,029.88. This represents a 18.19% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of Meta Platforms 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. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254 in the last ninety days. 13.61% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.