Summit Investment Advisory Services LLC Makes New $318,000 Investment in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Summit Investment Advisory Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 845 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $318,000.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $147,714,197,000 after purchasing an additional 6,129,708 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $68,824,173,000 after purchasing an additional 1,951,554 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 215,874,152 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $68,162,263,000 after purchasing an additional 5,762,902 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the 2nd 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 purchasing an additional 556,020 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Microsoft by 112,158.6% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 150,187,424 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $36,017,948,000 after acquiring an additional 150,053,637 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Microsoft from $415.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. KeyCorp assumed coverage on Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $490.00 price target on the stock. Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, March 25th. BNP Paribas upgraded Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $471.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $430.52.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $421.90 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.20, a current ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.13 trillion, a PE ratio of 38.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.89. Microsoft Co. has a twelve month low of $275.37 and a twelve month high of $430.82. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $415.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is $381.58.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The software giant reported $2.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.76 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $62.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $61.14 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.40% and a net margin of 36.27%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.32 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. will post 11.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be given a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 15th. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 27.12%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total value of $18,530,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 574,129 shares in the company, valued at $236,414,839.62. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $1.95, for a total transaction of $1,950,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 11,677,398 shares in the company, valued at $22,770,926.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total value of $18,530,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 574,129 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $236,414,839.62. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 1,070,258 shares of company stock worth $30,690,456. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Microsoft Profile

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.