Piper Sandler Reiterates Overweight Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “overweight” rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Piper Sandler in a research note issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $465.00 price target on the software giant’s stock, up from their prior price target of $455.00. Piper Sandler’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 16.53% from the company’s previous close.

Several other research firms also recently commented on MSFT. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $415.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. KeyCorp began coverage on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, March 21st. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $490.00 price objective on the stock. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $480.00 to $475.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $421.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price target on shares of Microsoft from $465.00 to $489.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $441.80.

Microsoft Trading Down 2.4 %

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $399.04 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. Microsoft has a 12-month low of $292.73 and a 12-month high of $430.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.08, a PEG ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 0.89. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $414.44 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $387.17.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $61.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.27% and a return on equity of 38.40%. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.45 EPS. Analysts predict that Microsoft will post 11.61 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $1.95, for a total value of $1,950,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 11,677,398 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,770,926.10. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total transaction of $18,530,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 574,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $236,414,839.62. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $1.95, for a total transaction of $1,950,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 11,677,398 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,770,926.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,070,258 shares of company stock valued at $30,690,456 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 664,908,939 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $250,032,357,000 after buying an additional 15,701,937 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 215,874,152 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $68,162,263,000 after buying an additional 5,762,902 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $35,920,047,000. Barclays PLC raised its position in Microsoft by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 28,987,007 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,152,647,000 after purchasing an additional 2,456,190 shares during the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $9,625,201,000. 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.