Microsoft’s (MSFT) Overweight Rating Reiterated at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in a report issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. Piper Sandler currently has a $470.00 price target on the software giant’s stock.

MSFT has been the subject of a number of other reports. KeyCorp boosted their price target on Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Oppenheimer cut shares of Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. Argus raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $526.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $450.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “underperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, October 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twenty-six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $503.03.

Microsoft Stock Up 1.0 %

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $410.37 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 1.27. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $420.69 and its 200-day moving average price is $424.62. Microsoft has a 1-year low of $344.77 and a 1-year high of $468.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.05 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.86, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 0.91.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.08 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $65.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.99 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Microsoft will post 12.98 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be issued a $0.83 dividend. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.81%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 27.39%.

Microsoft declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, September 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $60.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software giant to purchase up to 1.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In related news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.04, for a total transaction of $1,027,600.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 50,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,552,000. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.04, for a total value of $1,027,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 50,000 shares in the company, valued at $20,552,000. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 78,353 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $408.63, for a total value of $32,017,386.39. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 864,327 shares in the company, valued at approximately $353,189,942.01. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 190,629 shares of company stock worth $77,916,485 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in Microsoft by 48,526.1% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 38,501,645 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $16,567,258,000 after acquiring an additional 38,422,466 shares during the period. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 1st quarter valued at $5,587,119,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 47,196.6% during the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,160,850,000 after purchasing an additional 4,824,436 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 667,987,038 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $281,035,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,078,099 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board raised its holdings in Microsoft by 77.6% in the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 6,281,925 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,642,931,000 after buying an additional 2,744,900 shares during the period. 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.