Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Given Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-five brokerages that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-three have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $485.53.

MSFT has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Argus raised their price target on Microsoft from $475.00 to $526.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Truist Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $600.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, June 17th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Microsoft from $495.00 to $520.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on Microsoft from $480.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, April 26th. Finally, Macquarie increased their price objective on Microsoft from $460.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, May 17th.

Microsoft Trading Up 1.6 %

MSFT stock opened at $425.27 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $440.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $420.65. Microsoft has a fifty-two week low of $309.45 and a fifty-two week high of $468.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.16 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 1.23.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.13. Microsoft had a return on equity of 37.54% and a net margin of 36.43%. The firm had revenue of $61.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.86 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.45 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 17.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be paid a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 15th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 25.97%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 322 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $416.60, for a total value of $134,145.20. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 47,255 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,686,433. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 322 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $416.60, for a total value of $134,145.20. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 47,255 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,686,433. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $425.68, for a total value of $10,642,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 104,949 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,674,690.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 25,566 shares of company stock valued at $10,877,535 in the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 667,987,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $281,035,506,000 after acquiring an additional 3,078,099 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at about $35,920,047,000. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,571,070 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,160,020,000 after acquiring an additional 842,884 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at about $9,625,201,000. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 25,505,600 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,591,126,000 after acquiring an additional 277,881 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

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.