Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-four ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and thirty-two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $452.61.

MSFT has been the subject of several research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Microsoft from $440.00 to $470.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. DA Davidson reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $500.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, March 15th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $455.00 to $465.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Macquarie lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $430.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $421.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares in the company, valued at $64,538,265.44. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $64,538,265.44. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 11,677,398 shares in the company, valued at approximately $22,770,926.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Microsoft

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Financial Security Advisor Inc. increased its holdings in Microsoft by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Financial Security Advisor Inc. now owns 27,270 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $10,255,000 after buying an additional 452 shares during the period. Gunderson Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Gunderson Capital Management Inc. now owns 24,887 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,359,000 after purchasing an additional 185 shares in the last quarter. Rappaport Reiches Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 14.9% in the 4th quarter. Rappaport Reiches Capital Management LLC now owns 8,213 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $3,089,000 after buying an additional 1,067 shares in the last quarter. Bailard Inc. lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Bailard Inc. now owns 470,301 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $148,497,000 after buying an additional 5,366 shares during the period. Finally, RNC Capital Management LLC grew its position in Microsoft by 10.4% in the fourth quarter. RNC Capital Management LLC now owns 69,053 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $25,967,000 after acquiring an additional 6,484 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $410.54 on Thursday. Microsoft has a twelve month low of $306.26 and a twelve month high of $430.82. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $413.84 and a two-hundred day moving average of $392.05. The company has a market capitalization of $3.05 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.54, a PEG ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.89.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $61.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.43% and a return on equity of 37.54%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 17.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.45 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be paid a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 15th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 25.97%.

Microsoft Company 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.