Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Trading 1.9% Higher – Time to Buy?

Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s stock price was up 1.9% during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $427.25 and last traded at $426.74. Approximately 7,630,184 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 63% from the average daily volume of 20,510,889 shares. The stock had previously closed at $418.79.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently commented on MSFT shares. Oppenheimer cut Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. TD Cowen cut their price objective on Microsoft from $495.00 to $475.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Microsoft from $506.00 to $548.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on Microsoft from $470.00 to $465.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $503.03.

Microsoft Trading Down 1.2 %

The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $421.39 and a 200-day simple moving average of $426.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.14 trillion, a P/E ratio of 34.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 0.91.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.99 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 12.93 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a dividend of $0.83 per share. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.39%.

Microsoft announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program on Monday, September 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $60.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software giant to repurchase up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 78,353 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $408.63, for a total transaction of $32,017,386.39. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 864,327 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $353,189,942.01. This trade represents a 8.31 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $414.72, for a total value of $414,720.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 57,511 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,850,961.92. This represents a 1.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 209,431 shares of company stock valued at $85,796,688 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 38,420,657 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $16,104,959,000 after purchasing an additional 406,940 shares in the last quarter. Decatur Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 15.7% in the third quarter. Decatur Capital Management Inc. now owns 53,007 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $22,809,000 after purchasing an additional 7,208 shares in the last quarter. Synovus Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 8.3% in the third quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 445,759 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $191,812,000 after purchasing an additional 34,261 shares in the last quarter. Castellan Group lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 5.2% in the third quarter. Castellan Group now owns 21,154 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,103,000 after purchasing an additional 1,052 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Optimist Retirement Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 187.7% in the third quarter. Optimist Retirement Group LLC now owns 16,219 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $6,979,000 after purchasing an additional 10,581 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.