Analysts Set Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Target Price at $503.03

Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty-nine research firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12-month price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $503.03.

MSFT has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $550.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $495.00 to $475.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 31st. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Oppenheimer lowered Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday, October 18th.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In related news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $402.59, for a total value of $16,103,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 544,847 shares in the company, valued at $219,349,953.73. The trade was a 6.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.04, for a total value of $1,027,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 50,000 shares in the company, valued at $20,552,000. The trade was a 4.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 209,431 shares of company stock worth $85,796,688. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft by 48,526.1% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 38,501,645 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $16,567,258,000 after acquiring an additional 38,422,466 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 1st quarter valued at $5,587,119,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 47,196.6% in the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,160,850,000 after purchasing an additional 4,824,436 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 165,024,812 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $70,790,682,000 after purchasing an additional 3,264,648 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 3,078,099 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $423.46 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 1.29. Microsoft has a one year low of $362.90 and a one year high of $468.35. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $420.84 and its 200 day moving average price is $426.46. The company has a market capitalization of $3.15 trillion, a PE ratio of 34.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.91.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.10 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The firm’s revenue was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.99 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Microsoft will post 12.93 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback program on Monday, September 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $60.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the software giant to repurchase up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.78%. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 27.39%.

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.