Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Position Increased by Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC

Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 107,929 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 422 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises about 1.9% of Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 16th biggest position. Carolinas Wealth Consulting LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $7,438,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd raised its holdings in Microsoft by 199.7% during the third quarter. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd now owns 107,705 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $25,356,000 after buying an additional 71,769 shares in the last quarter. Seascape Capital Management raised its holdings in Microsoft by 41.9% during the third quarter. Seascape Capital Management now owns 2,908 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $677,000 after buying an additional 858 shares in the last quarter. Verity & Verity LLC raised its holdings in Microsoft by 6.4% during the second quarter. Verity & Verity LLC now owns 67,872 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $17,432,000 after buying an additional 4,081 shares in the last quarter. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. raised its holdings in Microsoft by 9.2% during the third quarter. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. now owns 7,751 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,943,000 after buying an additional 650 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Handelsbanken Fonder AB raised its holdings in Microsoft by 1.4% during the third quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 2,789,479 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $649,670,000 after buying an additional 37,545 shares in the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Raymond James cut their target price on Microsoft from $280.00 to $270.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 25th. UBS Group set a $250.00 price target on Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Fundamental Research lowered 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. JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $305.00 price target on Microsoft and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price target on Microsoft from $247.00 to $290.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and twenty-seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $285.58.

Microsoft Stock Up 2.1 %

Microsoft stock opened at $253.92 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.89 trillion, a P/E ratio of 28.21, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a quick ratio of 1.89, a current ratio of 1.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. Microsoft Co. has a twelve month low of $213.43 and a twelve month high of $315.95. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $248.99 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $245.14.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its 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. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.05% and a return on equity of 39.87%. The firm had revenue of $52.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $53.17 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.48 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total transaction of $1,186,410.96. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 788,625 shares in the company, valued at approximately $196,272,990. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total transaction of $1,186,410.96. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 788,625 shares in the company, valued at approximately $196,272,990. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

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.