Bank of America Issues Positive Forecast for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Stock Price

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its price target boosted by Bank of America from $515.00 to $585.00 in a report issued on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Bank of America currently has a buy rating on the software giant’s stock.

MSFT has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Wedbush boosted their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $515.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 25th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $581.00 price objective (up previously from $512.00) on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $550.00 to $595.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $541.79.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $510.05 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.36. Microsoft has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $514.64. The company has a market capitalization of $3.79 trillion, a P/E ratio of 39.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.04. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $477.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $428.49.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $70.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $68.54 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.74% and a net margin of 35.79%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.94 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Microsoft will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 21st will be given a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 21st. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 25.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 75,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $436.05, for a total value of $32,703,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 476,999 shares in the company, valued at $207,995,413.95. This trade represents a 13.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Amy Coleman sold 13,243 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $452.01, for a total transaction of $5,985,968.43. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 43,100 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,481,631. The trade was a 23.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 135,743 shares of company stock valued at $60,224,683 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth about $44,343,058,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $18,733,827,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 40,290.4% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 46,695,303 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $17,528,950,000 after buying an additional 46,579,693 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 34,643.3% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,837,278 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $7,096,913,000 after buying an additional 16,788,816 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.