Houlihan Financial Resource Group Ltd. Purchases Shares of 17,489 Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by Defense World Staff on Mar 18th, 2023

Houlihan Financial Resource Group Ltd. purchased a new stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 17,489 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $4,146,000. Microsoft accounts for 2.5% of Houlihan Financial Resource Group Ltd.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest position.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Insight Advisors LLC PA increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 3.0% in the third quarter. Insight Advisors LLC PA now owns 20,062 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,673,000 after acquiring an additional 588 shares during the last quarter. WealthPlan Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the third quarter valued at about $9,815,000. Weiss Asset Management LP increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 2,045.5% in the third quarter. Weiss Asset Management LP now owns 45,270 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $10,543,000 after acquiring an additional 43,160 shares during the last quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 9.0% in the third quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 55,276 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $12,874,000 after acquiring an additional 4,568 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EP Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 13.3% in the third quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 549,840 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $128,058,000 after acquiring an additional 64,462 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on MSFT shares. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $285.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday. Raymond James lowered their price target on Microsoft from $280.00 to $270.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. Citigroup boosted their price target on Microsoft from $280.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. Barclays lowered their price target on Microsoft from $296.00 to $280.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 10th. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price target on Microsoft from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and twenty-seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $286.05.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total transaction 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 $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total transaction 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 $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total transaction of $1,186,410.96. Following 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. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock worth $1,728,111. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Up 1.2 %

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $279.43 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $252.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $245.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.93 and a quick ratio of 1.89. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $315.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.08 trillion, a PE ratio of 31.05, a PEG ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 0.92.

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

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.68 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.97%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 30.22%.

About Microsoft

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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.