Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target Increased to $330.00 by Analysts at Atlantic Securities

Posted by Defense World Staff on Apr 27th, 2023

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) had its price objective boosted by Atlantic Securities from $290.00 to $330.00 in a research note released on Wednesday morning, Briefing.com reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the software giant’s stock.

A number of other research analysts also recently commented on the company. UBS Group upped their price objective on Microsoft from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday. Credit Suisse Group upped their price objective on Microsoft from $285.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price objective on Microsoft from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday. KeyCorp increased their price target on Microsoft from $316.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, April 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Microsoft from $307.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and thirty-three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $322.88.

Microsoft Stock Performance

MSFT stock opened at $295.37 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.93, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The firm has a market cap of $2.20 trillion, a P/E ratio of 32.82, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.93. Microsoft has a 12-month low of $213.43 and a 12-month high of $299.57. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $271.70 and its 200 day simple moving average is $252.46.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. The business had revenue of $52.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.01 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 39.87% and a net margin of 33.05%. The business’s revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.22 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Microsoft will post 9.3 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm 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 0.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 30.22%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related 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 value of $272,320.00. Following the completion of 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 document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 788,625 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $196,272,990. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total value of $272,320.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,687,699.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock valued at $1,728,111. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Monumental Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 71.4% during the 3rd quarter. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. now owns 132 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 55 shares during the last quarter. Retirement Financial Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, PayPay Securities Corp acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.15% 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.