Cornerstone Financial Group LLC NE Acquires New Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Cornerstone Financial Group LLC NE acquired a new stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 1,772 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $747,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. WFA Asset Management Corp grew its position in Microsoft by 27.0% during the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $427,000 after purchasing an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,658,000 after acquiring an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the period. Doliver Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 7.2% in the fourth quarter. Doliver Advisors LP now owns 5,522 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,328,000 after purchasing an additional 372 shares during the period. Finally, Insight Wealth Strategies LLC lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. Insight Wealth Strategies LLC now owns 12,559 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,294,000 after purchasing an additional 752 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $479.14 on Tuesday. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $480.69. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $430.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $418.94. The company has a market cap of $3.56 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.58, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a current ratio of 1.35.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, EVP Amy Coleman sold 13,243 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $452.01, for a total transaction of $5,985,968.43. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 43,100 shares in the company, valued at $19,481,631. The trade was a 23.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 75,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $436.05, for a total transaction of $32,703,750.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 476,999 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $207,995,413.95. This represents a 13.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 135,743 shares of company stock worth $60,224,683 over the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday. TD Securities raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $490.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. KeyCorp reiterated a “sector weight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, June 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $515.68.

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.