Morgan Stanley Reaffirms Overweight Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Morgan Stanley reissued their overweight rating on shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in a research report released on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $506.00 price objective on the software giant’s stock.

MSFT has been the subject of several other reports. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $500.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $480.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $465.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, July 12th. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, June 13th. Finally, New Street Research initiated coverage on Microsoft in a report on Monday, June 10th. They set a buy rating and a $570.00 price objective for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $494.72.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $435.15 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.23 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.68, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $422.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $423.73. Microsoft has a twelve month low of $309.45 and a twelve month high of $468.35.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $2.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.90 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $64.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.38 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.96% and a return on equity of 35.95%. The company’s revenue was up 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.69 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Microsoft will post 13.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.76%. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 25.97%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.04, for a total transaction of $1,027,600.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 50,000 shares in the company, valued at $20,552,000. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of Microsoft 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $20,552,000. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 14,398 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $417.41, for a total transaction of $6,009,869.18. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 786,933 shares in the company, valued at $328,473,703.53. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 190,629 shares of company stock worth $77,916,485. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.5% during 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 acquiring an additional 3,078,099 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,920,047,000. Capital International Investors grew its position in Microsoft by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,571,070 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,160,020,000 after purchasing an additional 842,884 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 34,511,544 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $15,426,767,000 after purchasing an additional 97,075 shares during the period. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% during the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 25,505,600 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,591,126,000 after buying an additional 277,881 shares during the last quarter. 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.