Corrigan Financial Inc. Increases Stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Corrigan Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 12.6% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 4,483 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 503 shares during the period. Corrigan Financial Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,929,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Microsoft during the first quarter valued at approximately $5,587,119,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 47,196.6% during the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,160,850,000 after purchasing an additional 4,824,436 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 3,078,099 shares in the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board grew its stake in Microsoft by 77.6% in the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 6,281,925 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,642,931,000 after purchasing an additional 2,744,900 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&G Plc purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the first quarter valued at about $846,072,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 78,353 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $408.63, for a total transaction of $32,017,386.39. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 864,327 shares in the company, valued at $353,189,942.01. This represents a 8.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Christopher David Young sold 7,200 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $423.66, for a total value of $3,050,352.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 103,366 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $43,792,039.56. The trade was a 6.51 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 197,829 shares of company stock worth $80,966,837 in the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MSFT has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $497.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Microsoft from $470.00 to $465.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. TD Cowen decreased their price target on Microsoft from $495.00 to $475.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Wells Fargo & Company restated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their target price on shares of Microsoft from $510.00 to $500.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $503.03.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $417.79 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $3.11 trillion, a P/E ratio of 34.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.91. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $362.90 and a fifty-two week high of $468.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.30. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $422.62 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $426.21.

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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $65.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.99 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 12.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, September 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $60.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the software giant to buy up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.79%. 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.