Raymond James Reiterates Outperform Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reiterated by Raymond James in a note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $480.00 target price on the software giant’s stock, up from their previous target price of $450.00. Raymond James’ price target would indicate a potential upside of 17.25% from the stock’s current price.

MSFT has been the topic of a number of other research reports. BNP Paribas upgraded Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $471.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Macquarie lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $430.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $440.00 to $470.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $480.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their target price on Microsoft from $465.00 to $489.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $442.57.

Microsoft Trading Up 2.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT traded up $10.34 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $409.38. The stock had a trading volume of 20,308,636 shares, compared to its average volume of 21,997,238. The company’s 50 day moving average is $414.44 and its 200-day moving average is $387.17. Microsoft has a 12-month low of $295.25 and a 12-month high of $430.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a current ratio of 1.22. The company has a market cap of $3.04 trillion, a PE ratio of 36.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 0.89.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its 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 company had revenue of $61.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.40% and a net margin of 36.27%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.45 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft will post 11.61 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 159,764 shares in the company, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In related news, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $1.95, for a total transaction of $1,950,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 11,677,398 shares in the company, valued at approximately $22,770,926.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total transaction of $8,868,941.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 159,764 shares in the company, valued at $64,538,265.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,070,258 shares of company stock worth $30,690,456 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 664,908,939 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $250,032,357,000 after purchasing an additional 15,701,937 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 2.7% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 215,874,152 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $68,162,263,000 after purchasing an additional 5,762,902 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Microsoft during the 4th quarter worth about $35,920,047,000. Barclays PLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 9.3% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 28,987,007 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,152,647,000 after buying an additional 2,456,190 shares during the period. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth approximately $9,625,201,000. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

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.