Wedbush Lowers Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $575.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its target price dropped by equities research analysts at Wedbush from $625.00 to $575.00 in a research report issued on Thursday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has an “outperform” rating on the software giant’s stock. Wedbush’s price target points to a potential upside of 33.63% from the company’s previous close.

Several other research analysts have also commented on MSFT. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, November 19th. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Microsoft from $690.00 to $660.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $655.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $600.00 target price (down previously from $650.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $597.73.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.7%

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $430.29 on Thursday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $475.83 and a 200-day simple moving average of $499.71. Microsoft has a one year low of $344.79 and a one year high of $555.45. The firm has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.91, a P/E/G ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. The company had revenue of $81.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. Microsoft’s revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.23 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Microsoft will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value of $6,266,880.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,577,620.48. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total value of $1,364,352.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 over the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Microsoft

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 51.3% in the second quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Westend Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 386.7% in the 2nd quarter. Westend Capital Management LLC now owns 73 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 58 shares during the period. Bayforest Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 3rd quarter valued at about $38,000. Fairway Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 287.0% in the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 66 shares during the period. Finally, Sellwood Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the third quarter worth about $49,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Large commercial deals and partnerships underpin continued demand — Microsoft landed a major cloud customer agreement (Perplexity, reported as a $750M deal), which demonstrates Azure can win sizable AI workloads and supports future revenue. Perplexity signs $750 million AI cloud deal with Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: Long-term AI opportunity remains large — analysts and commentators note that potential liquidity events (e.g., an OpenAI IPO) and continued hyperscaler AI demand could boost infrastructure spending that benefits Microsoft’s cloud and services over time. Could A $1 Trillion OpenAI IPO Save The Day For Nvidia, Microsoft?
• Positive Sentiment: Backlog/RPO growth signals demand — Microsoft’s commercial remaining performance obligations (backlog) jumped materially year-over-year, implying multi-year contracted revenue tied to AI workloads. Microsoft demand backlog doubles to $625 billion
• Neutral Sentiment: Quarterly results were solid but mixed — MSFT beat on revenue and EPS (Q2 results) yet the company issued guidance and commentary that implied a modest moderation in Azure growth vs. prior quarter; the market is parsing growth vs. the cost profile. Microsoft Q2 earnings beat on top and bottom lines
• Neutral Sentiment: Options and sentiment flows amplify moves — unusually high call-option buying and heavy volume have increased intraday volatility and may accentuate both selloffs and snapbacks. Stock Of The Day: Is This The Bottom For Microsoft?
• Negative Sentiment: Investor backlash to capex and margin risk — the core negative: investors punished MSFT because AI capex jumped (reported ~$37.5B in the quarter) while Azure growth showed signs of slowing, raising doubts about near-term returns. That drove a sharp selloff and a big market-cap contraction. Microsoft tumbled 10% in a day and isn’t recovering premarket. Here’s why
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst cuts & guidance uncertainty — several firms trimmed price targets or flagged near-term Azure/margin risks, increasing downside pressure even as many maintain buy ratings longer term. These Analysts Slash Their Forecasts On Microsoft Following Q2 Results
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/investor scrutiny follows the shock drop — law firms have opened investigations and class-action notices have surfaced, which can keep sentiment fragile near-term. Microsoft Corporation Investigated on Behalf of Investors

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).