Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Shares Bought by Marks Group Wealth Management Inc

Marks Group Wealth Management Inc grew its position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 183.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 22,397 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 14,500 shares during the period. Marks Group Wealth Management Inc’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $5,371,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Monumental Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 71.4% in the 3rd quarter. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. now owns 132 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 55 shares during the period. Retirement Financial Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, PayPay Securities Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $316.87, for a total transaction of $1,584,350.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 89,328 shares in the company, valued at $28,305,363.36. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $316.87, for a total value of $1,584,350.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 89,328 shares in the company, valued at approximately $28,305,363.36. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of 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. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 54,848 shares of company stock worth $16,635,227. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Trading Down 1.8 %

MSFT opened at $315.26 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.34 trillion, a PE ratio of 34.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.93. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $293.30 and its 200 day moving average price is $263.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 1.91 and a quick ratio of 1.88. Microsoft Co. has a 12-month low of $213.43 and a 12-month high of $322.72.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last released its 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. The firm had revenue of $52.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.01 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.25% and a return on equity of 38.98%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.22 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be given a dividend of $0.68 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.86%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 29.47%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upped 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. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $310.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $325.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $290.00 to $348.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and thirty-two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $323.28.

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.