First Heartland Consultants Inc. Lowers Stock Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

First Heartland Consultants Inc. trimmed its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 15,257 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 84 shares during the quarter. First Heartland Consultants Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $6,565,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Net Worth Advisory Group bought a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 3rd quarter worth $2,645,000. Oak Ridge Investments LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 7.6% in the third quarter. Oak Ridge Investments LLC now owns 263,534 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $113,399,000 after purchasing an additional 18,544 shares during the last quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp raised its holdings in Microsoft by 1.6% in the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 1,975,200 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $882,816,000 after purchasing an additional 31,401 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.9% during the third quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA now owns 96,021 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $41,318,000 after buying an additional 880 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Focus Financial Network Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Focus Financial Network Inc. now owns 76,296 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $32,830,000 after buying an additional 1,489 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $501.00 to $500.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Truist Financial reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Mizuho upped their target price on Microsoft from $480.00 to $510.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, TD Cowen lowered their price target on Microsoft from $495.00 to $475.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $511.53.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Christopher David Young sold 7,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $423.66, for a total transaction of $3,050,352.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 103,366 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $43,792,039.56. This represents a 6.51 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $447.41, for a total transaction of $1,118,525.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 49,352 shares in the company, valued at $22,080,578.32. This represents a 4.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 41,200 shares of company stock worth $17,383,892. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Microsoft Trading Up 1.0 %

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $429.03 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.19 trillion, a PE ratio of 35.40, a PEG ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 0.90. Microsoft Co. has a 12-month low of $385.58 and a 12-month high of $468.35. The business has a 50 day moving average of $429.19 and a two-hundred day moving average of $426.57. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $65.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.61% and a return on equity of 34.56%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.99 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 12.92 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 27.39%.

Microsoft Company Profile

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.