Column Capital Advisors LLC Buys 904 Shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by MarketBeat News on May 22nd, 2023

Column Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 15.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 6,888 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 904 shares during the period. Column Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,652,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 35,465.9% in the 1st quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 20,611,140 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $66,852,000 after purchasing an additional 20,553,188 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Microsoft by 1.0% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $147,714,197,000 after buying an additional 6,129,708 shares in the last quarter. Swiss National Bank grew its stake in Microsoft by 13.8% during the first quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 30,893,155 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,524,669,000 after buying an additional 3,757,500 shares during the last quarter. Cottage Street Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 17,734.7% during the fourth quarter. Cottage Street Advisors LLC now owns 3,763,300 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,351,000 after buying an additional 3,742,199 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 73.8% during the third quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 8,172,257 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,903,319,000 after buying an additional 3,471,095 shares in the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $310.05, for a total transaction of $1,550,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 110,206 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,169,370.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $310.05, for a total transaction of $1,550,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 110,206 shares in the company, valued at $34,169,370.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,081 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.54, for a total transaction of $1,588,015.74. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 94,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,481,273.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 54,848 shares of company stock worth $16,635,227 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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MSFT has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. KeyCorp increased their price target on Microsoft from $316.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. BNP Paribas cut Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $310.00 to $300.00 in a report on Monday, April 24th. Barclays lifted their price target on Microsoft from $310.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and thirty-two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $323.28.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $318.34 on Monday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $290.86 and a 200 day simple moving average of $261.67. Microsoft Co. has a 52-week low of $213.43 and a 52-week high of $319.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.88 and a current ratio of 1.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.37 trillion, a PE ratio of 34.49, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.93.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.25% and a return on equity of 38.98%. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $51.01 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.22 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 9.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be paid a $0.68 dividend. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.85%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 29.47%.

Microsoft 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.