Insider Selling: Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) COO Sells 926 Shares of Stock

Key Points

• Insider selling: Meta COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares on March 9 at an average price of $634.94 for ~$587,954, reducing his stake by 5.75% to 15,187 shares, part of a series of sales in Feb–Mar that included a 2,461‑share sale on Feb 15.
• Company results and strategy: Meta beat quarterly estimates (EPS $8.88 vs. $8.16; revenue $59.89B), announced a $0.525 quarterly dividend (ex‑dividend Mar 16), and is accelerating AI investments (in‑house chips, Moltbook acquisition) while facing near‑term headwinds from a Europe ad fee pass‑through and a Dutch court ruling on feeds.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META - Get Free Report) COO Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $634.94, for a total value of $587,954.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 15,187 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,642,833.78. This represents a 5.75% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link.

Javier Olivan also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, March 9th, Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $634.94, for a total value of $399,377.26.
• On Monday, March 2nd, Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $400,805.09.
• On Monday, March 2nd, Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $637.21, for a total value of $590,056.46.
• On Monday, February 23rd, Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $652.68, for a total value of $410,535.72.
• On Monday, February 23rd, Javier Olivan sold 926 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $652.68, for a total transaction of $604,381.68.
• On Tuesday, February 17th, Javier Olivan sold 629 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total transaction of $402,044.22.
• On Tuesday, February 17th, Javier Olivan sold 172 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $639.18, for a total transaction of $109,938.96.
• On Sunday, February 15th, Javier Olivan sold 2,461 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $639.77, for a total transaction of $1,574,473.97.
• On Monday, February 9th, Javier Olivan sold 517 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $663.19, for a total transaction of $342,869.23.
• On Monday, February 2nd, Javier Olivan sold 517 shares of Meta Platforms stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $714.60, for a total transaction of $369,448.20.

Meta Platforms Trading Up 0.1%

Shares of Meta Platforms stock traded up $0.79 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $654.86. 8,937,273 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 15,138,161. The company has a quick ratio of 2.60, a current ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The firm has a market cap of $1.66 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.30. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $479.80 and a 1 year high of $796.25. The stock's fifty day moving average is $654.53 and its 200 day moving average is $679.33.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $8.16 by $0.72. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The company had revenue of $59.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $58.33 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $8.02 EPS. Meta Platforms's revenue was up 23.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 26th. Investors of record on Monday, March 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 16th. Meta Platforms's dividend payout ratio is currently 8.94%.

Key Meta Platforms News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Meta unveiled a roadmap of four new in‑house AI chips to expand data‑center capacity and reduce reliance on third‑party hardware — a move that can lower long‑term costs, support larger AI services and improve margins. Meta unveils plans for batch of in-house AI chips (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Meta acquired Moltbook, a viral social network for AI agents, and added its founders to Meta’s Superintelligence Labs — a talent and IP pickup that signals continued investment in frontier AI capabilities. Meta acquires AI agent social network Moltbook (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Meta rolled out AI‑powered anti‑scam/scam‑detection tools across WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger — a product move that may improve user trust and engagement while reducing fraud costs. Meta taps AI to combat fraud (PYMNTS)
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts at Evercore flagged that internet stocks — including Meta — look oversold amid AI and geopolitical fears, which supports a valuation rebound narrative and may attract value‑oriented buyers. Amazon, Uber, and Other Internet Stocks Look Too Cheap (Barron's)
• Neutral Sentiment: Former Meta AI chief Yann LeCun’s startup AMI raised over $1B for an alternative AI approach — a competitive development that could influence the broader AI ecosystem but has ambiguous near‑term impact on Meta’s business. Ex‑Meta AI chief's AMI raises $1.03B (Reuters)
• Negative Sentiment: Meta will charge advertisers a 2%–5% location fee to offset Europe’s digital service taxes — a pass‑through that could reduce ad demand or complicate pricing, pressuring near‑term ad revenue growth in affected markets. Meta to charge advertisers fee to offset Europe's digital taxes (Reuters)
• Negative Sentiment: A Dutch appeals court upheld a ruling requiring Meta to offer chronological feeds in the Netherlands — a regulatory outcome that could limit profiling‑based feed features and ad targeting effectiveness, raising compliance and product risk. Dutch court upholds ruling forcing Meta to offer chronological feeds (Reuters)

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on META. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $910.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $900.00 price target (up from $870.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Meta Platforms from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $930.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $844.44.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Westchester Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the third quarter valued at $26,000. Bare Financial Services Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the second quarter worth $30,000. RHL Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter worth about $44,000. 79.91% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.