Armstrong Henry H Associates Inc. Trims Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by Defense World Staff on Mar 19th, 2023

Armstrong Henry H Associates Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 1.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 804,629 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 9,897 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises about 23.9% of Armstrong Henry H Associates Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd biggest position. Armstrong Henry H Associates Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $192,966,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Monumental Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Microsoft during the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 71.4% during the third quarter. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. now owns 132 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Microsoft during the third quarter valued at approximately $82,000. Avondale Wealth Management grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 58.6% during the third quarter. Avondale Wealth Management now owns 406 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $95,000 after buying an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 57.5% during the third quarter. Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. now owns 411 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $95,000 after buying an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. Wolfe Research cut their target price on Microsoft from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 25th. Cowen lowered their price target on Microsoft from $285.00 to $280.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 19th. Guggenheim lowered Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $212.00 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday, January 17th. Fundamental Research lowered their price target on Microsoft from $269.73 to $259.47 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 2nd. Finally, UBS Group set a $250.00 price target on Microsoft in a report on Tuesday, March 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $286.05.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $279.43 on Friday. 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 stock’s fifty day moving average price is $252.31 and its 200 day moving average price is $245.43. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $213.43 and a 1 year high of $315.95. The company has a market cap of $2.08 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.05, a PEG ratio of 2.54 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 (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $53.17 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.48 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total value of $1,186,410.96. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 788,625 shares in the company, valued at $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 6,767 shares of company stock valued at $1,728,111. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

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.