Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Trading Up 3.1% After Analyst Upgrade

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares traded up 3.1% during trading on Tuesday after New Street Research raised their price target on the stock from $670.00 to $675.00. New Street Research currently has a buy rating on the stock. Microsoft traded as high as $372.90 and last traded at $370.17. 42,992,286 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 18% from the average session volume of 36,509,344 shares. The stock had previously closed at $358.96.

A number of other research firms have also issued reports on MSFT. Wolfe Research dropped their target price on Microsoft from $625.00 to $530.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Microsoft from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $575.00 to $550.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $590.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have assigned a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $588.97.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $409.52, for a total value of $5,045,695.92. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 137,933 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $56,486,322.16. This trade represents a 8.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director John W. Stanton bought 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The shares were bought at an average price of $397.35 per share, for a total transaction of $1,986,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 83,905 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,339,651.75. This represents a 6.34% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Exclusive power/energy talks: Microsoft has an exclusivity agreement with Chevron and Engine No. 1 to develop a ~2.5GW (potentially expandable) Texas gas?power complex to supply a large data?center campus — this de?risks power for MSFT’s AI buildout and shortens a key infrastructure bottleneck. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Regional cloud/AI capex: Microsoft is committing major capital to Asia — a reported $5.5B in Singapore plus ~$1B in Thailand — to expand Azure/AI capacity and local partnerships, supporting long?term revenue from enterprise AI adoption. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Several firms (Benchmark start?coverage Buy, New Street higher PT, others) have issued or reiterated Buy ratings and raised targets — providing near?term buying interest and signaling that many analysts view the pullback as an entry point. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Small IP tuck?in: ActiveOps sold WorkiQ trademarks to Microsoft for $10M — minor strategic asset acquisition with limited near?term financial impact. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI funding round: Massive funding at OpenAI ($122B reported) is a positive ecosystem signal for Microsoft’s AI partnerships, but benefits are indirect and timing/valuation implications remain uncertain. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Earnings/sentiment hit: MSFT logged its worst quarterly price performance since 2008 as investors worried about the return on large AI capex and slower Copilot adoption — this has driven a sharp pullback and elevated volatility. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Regulatory risk: U.K. competition authorities have opened scrutiny of Microsoft’s business software ecosystem, which could lead to remedies increasing costs or reducing pricing power in enterprise segments. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Technical & insider signals: The stock recently breached long?term moving averages and there have been notable insider sales; these factors can amplify short?term downside as technical traders react. Read More.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 51.3% in the second quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Bernzott Capital Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Timmons Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at about $36,000. Bayforest Capital Ltd acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 3rd quarter valued at about $38,000. Finally, Fairway Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 287.0% during the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.2%

The company has a market cap of $2.74 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.10, a PEG ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.38. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $404.16 and its 200-day simple moving average is $464.55.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The business had revenue of $81.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.23 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 21st. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 22.76%.

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).