Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Stock Holdings Cut by Veritas Investment Partners UK Ltd.

Veritas Investment Partners UK Ltd. lowered its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 10.2% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 715,729 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 81,233 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 5.6% of Veritas Investment Partners UK Ltd.’s holdings, making the stock its 7th largest position. Veritas Investment Partners UK Ltd.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $166,647,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. New Harbor Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 11.9% during the third quarter. New Harbor Financial Group LLC now owns 895 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $208,000 after acquiring an additional 95 shares during the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.7% during the third quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 743,839 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $173,239,000 after acquiring an additional 12,358 shares during the last quarter. Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 3.1% during the third quarter. Wellspring Financial Advisors LLC now owns 8,975 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,100,000 after acquiring an additional 267 shares during the last quarter. CenterBook Partners LP raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 8.4% during the third quarter. CenterBook Partners LP now owns 24,105 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,614,000 after acquiring an additional 1,865 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Waldron Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.5% during the third quarter. Waldron Private Wealth LLC now owns 95,702 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $22,289,000 after acquiring an additional 2,335 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total value of $1,186,410.96. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 788,625 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock valued at $1,728,111 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.5 %

MSFT opened at $252.32 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a 12 month low of $213.43 and a 12 month high of $315.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.88 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.04, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.93 and a quick ratio of 1.89. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $248.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $245.95.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.27 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $52.75 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $53.17 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 39.87% and a net margin of 33.05%. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.48 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. StockNews.com cut Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 27th. Cowen cut their price target on Microsoft from $285.00 to $280.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 19th. Credit Suisse Group set a $285.00 price target on Microsoft in a report on Thursday, March 2nd. Fundamental Research cut their price target on Microsoft from $269.73 to $259.47 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 2nd. Finally, UBS Group set a $250.00 price target on Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and twenty-seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $285.58.

About Microsoft

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Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment consists of Office Commercial (Office 365 subscriptions, the Office 365 portion of Microsoft 365 Commercial subscriptions, and Office licensed on-premises), Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, Office Consumer, including Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other Office services, LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Premium Subscriptions, Sales Solutions, and Learning Solutions, Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, comprising a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, Customer Insights, Power Apps, and Power Automate, and on-premises ERP and CRM applications.