Kensington Investment Counsel LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by on Mar 15th, 2023

Kensington Investment Counsel LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 21,933 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 662 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for 4.3% of Kensington Investment Counsel LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 2nd largest position. Kensington Investment Counsel LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $5,108,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 35,465.9% during the 1st quarter. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 20,611,140 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $66,852,000 after buying an additional 20,553,188 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Microsoft by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $147,714,197,000 after buying an additional 6,129,708 shares in the last quarter. Bishop Rock Capital L.P. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 11,434.2% during the 2nd quarter. Bishop Rock Capital L.P. now owns 5,460,976 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $21,263,000 after purchasing an additional 5,413,630 shares during the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth about $981,125,000. Finally, Swiss National Bank increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 13.8% during the 1st quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 30,893,155 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,524,669,000 after purchasing an additional 3,757,500 shares during the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total value of $269,380.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 117,362 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total value of $269,380.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 117,362 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total transaction of $1,186,410.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 788,625 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock worth $1,728,111. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on MSFT. Evercore ISI lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $300.00 to $280.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 19th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 27th. Rosenblatt Securities decreased their price target on shares of Microsoft from $285.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $315.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, January 25th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada set a $285.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, January 25th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $285.58.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $260.79 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $1.94 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.98, a PEG ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.93 and a quick ratio of 1.89. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $249.41 and a 200 day simple moving average of $245.09. Microsoft Co. has a one year low of $213.43 and a one year high of $315.95.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.27 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $52.75 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $53.17 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.05% and a return on equity of 39.87%. The firm’s revenue was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.48 EPS. Research analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 6th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 18th will be paid a $0.68 dividend. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 30.22%.

Microsoft Profile

(Get Rating)

Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment consists of Office Commercial (Office 365 subscriptions, the Office 365 portion of Microsoft 365 Commercial subscriptions, and Office licensed on-premises), Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, Office Consumer, including Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other Office services, LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Premium Subscriptions, Sales Solutions, and Learning Solutions, Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, comprising a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, Customer Insights, Power Apps, and Power Automate, and on-premises ERP and CRM applications.

Featured Articles

Institutional Ownership by Quarter for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Receive News & Ratings for Microsoft Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Microsoft and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.