Huntington National Bank Acquires 9,999 Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. $META

Huntington National Bank boosted its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) by 2.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 353,922 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 9,999 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for about 1.6% of Huntington National Bank’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Huntington National Bank’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $259,913,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Goldstone Financial Group LLC raised its position in Meta Platforms by 44.4% during the third quarter. Goldstone Financial Group LLC now owns 3,752 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $2,756,000 after purchasing an additional 1,153 shares in the last quarter. CW Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 27.8% during the 2nd quarter. CW Advisors LLC now owns 176,762 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $130,467,000 after purchasing an additional 38,432 shares during the last quarter. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 34.2% during the 3rd quarter. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC now owns 52,252 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $38,373,000 after buying an additional 13,311 shares in the last quarter. Cherokee Insurance Co bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,321,000. Finally, Bangor Savings Bank boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 36.6% in the third quarter. Bangor Savings Bank now owns 3,134 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $2,302,000 after buying an additional 840 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.1%

NASDAQ META opened at $660.41 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $1.67 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 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 stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $655.36 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $682.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a current ratio of 2.60.

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

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. BMO Capital Markets lifted 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 note on Thursday, January 29th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $872.00 target price (up from $830.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Roth Mkm cut their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Argus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Citigroup reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have assigned a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $844.44.

Meta Platforms News Summary

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

• Positive Sentiment: Signed a multiyear AI content?licensing deal with News Corp that provides paid access to news content for training/retrieval — supports AI product quality and reduces legal/quality risk around training data. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Created a new applied AI engineering organization to speed model development and partner with its Superintelligence Lab — signals accelerated product rollout and continued R&D investment that can boost ad/product monetization. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Erste Group upgraded META from “hold” to “buy”, adding a positive analyst catalyst that can support demand in the stock.
• Neutral Sentiment: Company presentation at Morgan Stanley TMT conference provided additional management commentary and analyst color — useful for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Arete Research reaffirmed a “neutral” rating, offering little directional pressure today.
• Negative Sentiment: Under EU antitrust pressure, Meta will allow rival AI chatbots onto WhatsApp in Europe (via its Business API) for a fee for the next 12 months — a concession that reduces immediate regulatory risk but highlights EU scrutiny and could erode WhatsApp exclusivity. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider sales disclosed this week — CFO Susan Li sold ~56,571 shares (~$36.5M) and COO Javier Olivan also sold shares — which can create headline pressure and short?term selling even if plan?driven. Read More. • Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory/reputational pressure from Indonesia, which issued a “stern warning” over disinformation and gambling content and pressed for greater algorithm transparency — potential compliance costs or restrictions in a large market. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Operational risks surfaced: recent U.S. user outages (short?term engagement/ad impression risk) and reports Meta scrapped its second?generation Olympus AI chip effort — the latter could raise execution risk and greater reliance on external GPU suppliers. Read More. • Read More.

Insider Activity

In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 56,571 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $644.70, for a total transaction of $36,471,323.70. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 8,089 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $631.24, for a total value of $5,106,100.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 2,841 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,793,352.84. This represents a 74.01% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 160,927 shares of company stock valued at $103,155,254. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.

Meta Platforms 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.