Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Has $970.60 Million Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,255,624 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 34,440 shares during the period. Microsoft comprises 5.7% of Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 3rd largest holding. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $970,595,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 48,526.1% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 38,501,645 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $16,567,258,000 after purchasing an additional 38,422,466 shares during the period. Wulff Hansen & CO. increased its holdings in Microsoft by 47,196.6% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,160,850,000 after buying an additional 4,824,436 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in Microsoft by 67.5% in the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 5,963,863 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,566,250,000 after buying an additional 2,404,348 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 31,648.5% during the second quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC now owns 1,871,892 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,366,000 after buying an additional 1,865,996 shares during the period. Finally, PineStone Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in Microsoft by 128.4% during the 2nd quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,160,657 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,412,656,000 after acquiring an additional 1,776,825 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MSFT has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Mizuho boosted their price target on Microsoft from $480.00 to $510.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. KeyCorp increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group dropped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $515.00 to $500.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $506.00 to $548.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $509.90.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $417.00, for a total value of $10,425,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,294 shares in the company, valued at $48,911,598. This trade represents a 17.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.72, for a total value of $414,720.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 57,511 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,850,961.92. This trade represents a 1.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 41,200 shares of company stock valued at $17,383,892 over the last quarter. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $438.11 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.30. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $366.50 and a 1 year high of $468.35. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $428.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $428.86. The firm has a market cap of $3.26 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.15, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.90.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.10 by $0.20. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.61% and a return on equity of 34.56%. The company had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.57 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.99 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. will post 12.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 27.39%.

Microsoft announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Monday, September 16th that allows the company to repurchase $60.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the software giant to repurchase up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.