Bramshill Investments LLC Grows Stock Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Bramshill Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 166.2% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,168 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,978 shares during the period. Bramshill Investments LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,335,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $44,343,058,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 34,643.3% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,837,278 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $7,096,913,000 after purchasing an additional 16,788,816 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 16.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,316,535,000 after purchasing an additional 11,600,470 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 684,071,705 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $288,336,224,000 after buying an additional 10,431,988 shares during the period. Finally, APG Asset Management N.V. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 471.4% during the fourth quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 5,812,933 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,366,153,000 after buying an additional 4,795,536 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, May 21st. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. KeyCorp reissued a “sector weight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $430.00 to $494.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $515.68.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.01, for a total transaction of $460,010.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 47,058 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,647,150.58. This trade represents a 2.08% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 6,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $433.17, for a total transaction of $2,599,020.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 471,036 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $204,038,664.12. The trade was a 1.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 135,743 shares of company stock valued at $60,224,683. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $479.14 on Tuesday. Microsoft Co. has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $480.69. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $430.54 and a 200-day moving average of $418.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.56 trillion, a P/E ratio of 38.58, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a quick ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 1.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.24. The company had revenue of $70.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $68.54 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.43% and a return on equity of 33.36%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.94 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 25.66%.

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.