Mizuho Raises Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $340.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) had its target price boosted by Mizuho from $325.00 to $340.00 in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, The Fly reports. Mizuho’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 4.32% from the stock’s current price.

Several other research firms have also recently commented on MSFT. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $325.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on Microsoft from $290.00 to $348.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. BNP Paribas cut Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $310.00 to $300.00 in a report on Monday, April 24th. Guggenheim upped their price objective on Microsoft from $212.00 to $232.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, Moffett Nathanson raised their target price on Microsoft from $263.00 to $306.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $323.69.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $325.92 on Wednesday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $295.26 and its 200 day moving average price is $263.88. The company has a quick ratio of 1.88, a current ratio of 1.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The firm has a market cap of $2.42 trillion, a P/E ratio of 35.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 0.93. Microsoft has a 52-week low of $213.43 and a 52-week high of $326.90.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.98% and a net margin of 33.25%. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $51.01 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.22 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 7.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Microsoft will post 9.66 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In related news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 30,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $306.09, for a total transaction of $9,182,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 117,456 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,952,107.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $316.87, for a total value of $1,584,350.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 89,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $28,305,363.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Judson Althoff sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.09, for a total value of $9,182,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,456 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,952,107.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 54,848 shares of company stock worth $16,635,227 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Microsoft

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Microsoft by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $147,714,197,000 after purchasing an additional 6,129,708 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $68,824,173,000 after purchasing an additional 1,951,554 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. FMR LLC now owns 200,523,373 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $57,810,889,000 after purchasing an additional 1,537,712 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $50,302,677,000 after acquiring an additional 556,020 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 112,158.6% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 150,187,424 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $36,017,948,000 after acquiring an additional 150,053,637 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

About Microsoft

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Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment consists of Office Commercial (Office 365 subscriptions, the Office 365 portion of Microsoft 365 Commercial subscriptions, and Office licensed on-premises), Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, Office Consumer, including Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other Office services, LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Premium Subscriptions, Sales Solutions, and Learning Solutions, Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, comprising a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, Customer Insights, Power Apps, and Power Automate, and on-premises ERP and CRM applications.