Gould Capital LLC Sells 170 Shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Gould Capital LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 4.8% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 3,397 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 170 shares during the quarter. Gould Capital LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $791,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Microsoft by 1.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $147,714,197,000 after buying an additional 6,129,708 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Microsoft by 0.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $68,824,173,000 after buying an additional 1,951,554 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $50,302,677,000 after buying an additional 556,020 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in Microsoft by 1.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 54,799,110 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $14,074,064,000 after buying an additional 784,656 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. grew its position in Microsoft by 0.4% during the third quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 49,440,386 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $11,514,665,000 after buying an additional 208,765 shares in the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on MSFT shares. Credit Suisse Group set a $285.00 target price on Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, March 2nd. UBS Group set a $250.00 target price on Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday. Rosenblatt Securities lowered their target price on Microsoft from $285.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 26th. DA Davidson upped their price target on Microsoft from $280.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $267.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. One 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $285.58.

Microsoft Stock Performance

MSFT stock opened at $276.20 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.06 trillion, a PE ratio of 30.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.92. Microsoft Co. has a 12-month low of $213.43 and a 12-month high of $315.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.93, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $251.22 and its 200 day simple moving average is $245.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 analysts’ expectations of $53.17 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.48 EPS. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 6th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 18th will be issued a $0.68 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.98%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 30.22%.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Microsoft Company Profile

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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.