Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Cut to Hold at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen cut shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Monday morning.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on the company. Evercore ISI set a $515.00 target price on Microsoft and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $565.00 to $585.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 25th. Barclays raised their price objective on Microsoft from $430.00 to $494.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $530.00 target price (up from $482.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $540.00 to $605.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 11th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $524.71.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $491.09 on Monday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $457.07 and its 200-day simple moving average is $423.04. Microsoft has a 12 month low of $344.79 and a 12 month high of $500.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.36. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.65 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.95, a PEG ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.04.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.24. The company had revenue of $70.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $68.54 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.79% and a return on equity of 32.74%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.94 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 25.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, EVP Amy Coleman sold 13,243 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $452.01, for a total value of $5,985,968.43. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 43,100 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,481,631. This represents a 23.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Judson Althoff sold 16,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $458.18, for a total transaction of $7,330,880.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 98,010 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $44,906,221.80. The trade was a 14.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 135,743 shares of company stock valued at $60,224,683 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. WFA Asset Management Corp boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $427,000 after acquiring an additional 216 shares during the period. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 410.4% during the 3rd quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its position in Microsoft by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tallon Kerry Patrick purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth about $1,375,000. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

About Microsoft

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.