Cantor Fitzgerald Reaffirms Overweight Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “overweight” rating reissued by equities research analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald in a research note issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $509.00 price target on the software giant’s stock. Cantor Fitzgerald’s price objective points to a potential upside of 15.16% from the stock’s current price.

Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $497.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com raised shares of Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Microsoft from $548.00 to $540.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $520.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on Microsoft from $500.00 to $525.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $512.66.

Microsoft Trading Down 1.2 %

MSFT stock traded down $5.22 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $441.99. 2,460,929 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 19,522,275. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $432.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $425.03. Microsoft has a 1 year low of $385.58 and a 1 year high of $468.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.29 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.90.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released 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 business had revenue of $65.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.61% and a return on equity of 34.56%. The business’s revenue was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.99 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Microsoft will post 12.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In related news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.72, for a total value of $414,720.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 57,511 shares in the company, valued at $23,850,961.92. This represents a 1.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Christopher David Young sold 7,200 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $423.66, for a total transaction of $3,050,352.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 103,366 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $43,792,039.56. This represents a 6.51 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 41,200 shares of company stock worth $17,383,892. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Net Worth Advisory Group acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $2,645,000. Oak Ridge Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 7.6% in the third quarter. Oak Ridge Investments LLC now owns 263,534 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $113,399,000 after purchasing an additional 18,544 shares during the last quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 1.6% during the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 1,975,200 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $882,816,000 after purchasing an additional 31,401 shares during the last quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.9% during the third quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA now owns 96,021 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $41,318,000 after purchasing an additional 880 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Focus Financial Network Inc. grew its position in Microsoft by 2.0% in the third quarter. Focus Financial Network Inc. now owns 76,296 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $32,830,000 after purchasing an additional 1,489 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.