5 Cash-Rich Defensive Stocks to Buy Before Recession

2. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 184    

Free Cash Flow as of August 29: $35.83 billion

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is a tech firm that owns and runs social media platforms. The company has spent over $14 billion on stock repurchases so far this year as it seeks to pivot to the metaverse. In the quarter ended June 30, the firm had over $4.45 billion in free cash flow. The firm is exploring a possible debt sale of around $10 billion in order to offer some of the cash pressures on the stock in light of recession concerns. 

On August 19, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak maintained an Overweight rating on Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) stock and lowered the price target to $225 from $280, noting that execution uncertainty the firm faced was already reflected in the share price. 

At the end of the second quarter of 2022, 184 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $18 billion in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), compared to 200 in the preceding quarter worth $19 billion. 

In its Q4 2021 investor letter, Boyar Value Group, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:

“Corporate executives can have many different reasons for selling shares (anticipation of tax law changes, philanthropy, diversification, and much more), but the sheer number of billionaire founders who sold shares in 2021 should raise eyebrows and might well be signaling a market top. Bloomberg’s Ben Steverman and Scott Carpenter report not only that Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) (formerly known as Facebook) sold shares in his company almost every day last year but also that the founders of Google sold ~$3.5 billion worth of stock (the first time either Sergey Brin or Larry Page has sold shares since 2017).”