American Financial Advisors LLC Has $1.87 Million Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

American Financial Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 4,434 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 50 shares during the quarter. American Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,869,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 48,526.1% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 38,501,645 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $16,567,258,000 after purchasing an additional 38,422,466 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 76.6% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 10,532,402 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,439,407,000 after buying an additional 4,568,539 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 165,024,812 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $70,790,682,000 after acquiring an additional 3,264,648 shares in the last quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 46.1% during the 3rd quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 7,048,244 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,032,859,000 after buying an additional 2,222,483 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 4.1% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 54,590,791 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $23,490,417,000 after purchasing an additional 2,125,030 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, January 24th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on Microsoft from $510.00 to $480.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Wedbush cut their target price on Microsoft from $550.00 to $475.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $499.97.

Microsoft Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of MSFT opened at $367.78 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $389.13 and its 200 day moving average price is $413.21. The company has a current ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. Microsoft Co. has a 12-month low of $344.79 and a 12-month high of $468.35. The firm has a market cap of $2.73 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.00.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The software giant reported $3.23 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by $0.08. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.43% and a return on equity of 33.36%. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.93 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 15th will be issued a $0.83 dividend. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 15th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 26.73%.

About Microsoft

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.