Microsoft’s (MSFT) “Overweight” Rating Reaffirmed at Piper Sandler

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “overweight” rating restated by stock analysts at Piper Sandler in a report released on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $465.00 price objective on the software giant’s stock. Piper Sandler’s price target indicates a potential upside of 2.10% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on MSFT. KeyCorp assumed coverage on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, March 21st. They set an “overweight” rating and a $490.00 price objective on the stock. Macquarie raised their price objective on Microsoft from $460.00 to $475.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 17th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, May 22nd. Oppenheimer raised their price target on Microsoft from $450.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, June 7th. Finally, Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $480.00 price objective (up from $450.00) on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, April 26th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $470.86.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.2 %

MSFT traded up $0.74 on Friday, hitting $455.44. The company had a trading volume of 8,418,792 shares, compared to its average volume of 20,551,813. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market cap of $3.38 trillion, a P/E ratio of 39.38, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.89. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $435.00 and its 200 day moving average price is $415.23. Microsoft has a 1 year low of $309.45 and a 1 year high of $468.35.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $61.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.43% and a return on equity of 37.54%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.45 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.77 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 23rd. The stock was 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 owns 104,949 shares in the company, valued at $44,674,690.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, 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 SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 244 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $415.53, for a total transaction of $101,389.32. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 47,011 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,534,480.83. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 25,566 shares of company stock worth $10,877,535. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.4% during the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 1,887,020 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $595,827,000 after purchasing an additional 26,718 shares in the last quarter. Spartan Planning & Wealth Management acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,455,000. Diversified Trust Co raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 22.9% during the third quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 172,423 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $54,443,000 after purchasing an additional 32,072 shares during the period. Savoie Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft during the third quarter worth $8,418,000. Finally, Kampmann Melissa S. purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the third quarter valued at $4,609,000. 71.13% of the stock is 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.