Evercore ISI Raises Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $485.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its price objective upped by Evercore ISI from $475.00 to $485.00 in a report published on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the software giant’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. KeyCorp assumed coverage on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, March 21st. They issued an overweight rating and a $490.00 price objective for the company. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Microsoft from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $471.00 price target for the company in a report on Thursday, January 18th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $455.00 to $465.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, April 12th. Macquarie upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $430.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Truist Financial reiterated a buy rating and set a $600.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, March 25th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $452.61.

Microsoft Trading Up 1.8 %

Shares of MSFT opened at $406.32 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $3.02 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.18, a PEG ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a current ratio of 1.22. Microsoft has a fifty-two week low of $295.25 and a fifty-two week high of $430.82. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $414.48 and a 200-day moving average price of $387.70.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $61.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.43% and a return on equity of 38.87%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 17.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.45 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Microsoft will post 11.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be given a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 15th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 25.97%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In related news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the 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 sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the 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 sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 11,677,398 shares in the company, valued at $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 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,920,047,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $9,625,201,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 664,908,939 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $250,032,357,000 after buying an additional 15,701,937 shares during the last quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter worth approximately $4,000,376,000. Finally, FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 5,762,902 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.