Wedbush Reiterates “Outperform” Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reaffirmed by stock analysts at Wedbush in a research note issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $550.00 target price on the software giant’s stock. Wedbush’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 32.15% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on MSFT. Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, June 17th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Microsoft from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Microsoft from $465.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $480.00 price objective (up from $450.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Microsoft from $450.00 to $515.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, April 26th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $487.74.

Microsoft Trading Down 1.6 %

Microsoft stock traded down $6.73 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $416.19. 17,602,924 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 20,627,195. Microsoft has a 52-week low of $309.45 and a 52-week high of $468.35. The company has a market capitalization of $3.09 trillion, a P/E ratio of 36.03, a PEG ratio of 2.02 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. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $440.44 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $421.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $2.95 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.90 by $0.05. Microsoft had a return on equity of 37.54% and a net margin of 36.43%. The company had revenue of $64.73 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $64.38 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.69 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Microsoft

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 667,987,038 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $281,035,506,000 after buying an additional 3,078,099 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth about $35,920,047,000. Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,571,070 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,160,020,000 after buying an additional 842,884 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth about $9,625,201,000. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 25,505,600 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,591,126,000 after buying an additional 277,881 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.