Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Earns “Outperform” Rating from Wedbush

Wedbush reaffirmed their outperform rating on shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Wedbush currently has a $500.00 target price on the software giant’s stock. Wedbush also issued estimates for Microsoft’s Q4 2024 earnings at $2.89 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $11.74 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $3.17 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $3.31 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $3.32 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $13.29 EPS.

MSFT has been the topic of a number of other research reports. KeyCorp started coverage on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, March 21st. They set an overweight rating and a $490.00 target price on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price objective on Microsoft from $465.00 to $489.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday. StockNews.com cut Microsoft from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a buy rating and set a $455.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, April 22nd. Finally, Piper Sandler reiterated an overweight rating and set a $465.00 target price (up from $455.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $452.61.

Microsoft Stock Down 1.0 %

MSFT opened at $402.25 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $414.45 and a 200 day moving average of $389.01. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Microsoft has a 12 month low of $303.40 and a 12 month high of $430.82. The company has a market cap of $2.99 trillion, a PE ratio of 34.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.89.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $61.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 37.54% and a net margin of 36.43%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.45 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.71 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 15th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 25.97%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares in the company, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total transaction of $8,868,941.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 3,303 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $406.12, for a total value of $1,341,414.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 570,826 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $231,823,855.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 1,070,258 shares of company stock worth $30,690,456 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Lodestone Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Lodestone Wealth Management LLC now owns 14,103 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,453,000 after buying an additional 68 shares in the last quarter. Caliber Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 3.7% during the 3rd quarter. Caliber Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,888 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,806,000 after buying an additional 316 shares in the last quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC now owns 65,525 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $20,689,000 after buying an additional 844 shares in the last quarter. McGuire Investment Group LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft by 3.8% in the 3rd quarter. McGuire Investment Group LLC now owns 52,388 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $16,541,000 after purchasing an additional 1,922 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kentucky Retirement Systems bought a new stake in Microsoft during the 3rd quarter valued at about $188,066,000. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

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.