Carlson Capital L P Invests $7.22 Million in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Carlson Capital L P bought a new position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 31,000 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $7,220,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Monumental Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Microsoft in the first quarter valued at about $28,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 71.4% in the third quarter. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. now owns 132 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Grayhawk Investment Strategies Inc. purchased a new position in Microsoft in the second quarter valued at about $104,000. Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the third quarter valued at approximately $82,000. Finally, Avondale Wealth Management raised its stake in Microsoft by 58.6% during the third quarter. Avondale Wealth Management now owns 406 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $95,000 after buying an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $305.00 price objective on Microsoft and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 8th. Wedbush upped their price objective on Microsoft from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 24th. UBS Group set a $250.00 price objective on Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, February 8th. Fundamental Research dropped their price target on Microsoft from $269.73 to $259.47 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 2nd. Finally, Cowen dropped their price target on Microsoft from $285.00 to $280.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $285.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s 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 transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at $31,687,699.84. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the firm’s 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total value of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at $31,687,699.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 6,767 shares of company stock worth $1,728,111 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $253.92 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.93, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $213.43 and a 1 year high of $315.95. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $248.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $245.14. The firm has a market cap of $1.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.21, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.92.

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

Microsoft Profile

(Get Rating)

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.