Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Trading Up 0.4% on Analyst Upgrade

Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares rose 0.4% during trading on Thursday after Tigress Financial raised their price target on the stock from $550.00 to $595.00. Tigress Financial currently has a buy rating on the stock. Microsoft traded as high as $391.79 and last traded at $389.43. Approximately 3,340,312 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 83% from the average daily volume of 19,204,838 shares. The stock had previously closed at $387.82.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on MSFT. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $520.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, January 27th. UBS Group cut their target price on Microsoft from $525.00 to $510.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $550.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $500.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $509.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $510.59.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. WFA Asset Management Corp raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% during the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after buying an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the 2nd quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,658,000 after buying an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. AMF Tjanstepension AB raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. AMF Tjanstepension AB now owns 2,799,261 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,204,664,000 after buying an additional 49,735 shares in the last quarter. Hoffman Alan N Investment Management raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Hoffman Alan N Investment Management now owns 77,217 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $33,226,000 after buying an additional 217 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SignalPoint Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 398.0% during the 3rd quarter. SignalPoint Asset Management LLC now owns 71,438 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $30,577,000 after buying an additional 57,093 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $408.82 and its 200-day moving average price is $419.65. The company has a current ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.91 trillion, a PE ratio of 31.50, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.92.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The software giant reported $3.23 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.15 by $0.08. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.43% and a return on equity of 33.36%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.93 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.85%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 26.73%.

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.