Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is West Branch Capital LLC’s 2nd Largest Position

Posted by Defense World Staff on Apr 28th, 2023

West Branch Capital LLC boosted its position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 0.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 44,418 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 227 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up approximately 6.6% of West Branch Capital LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd largest holding. West Branch Capital LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $10,652,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. First National Bank Sioux Falls raised its holdings in Microsoft by 8.9% in the fourth quarter. First National Bank Sioux Falls now owns 6,649 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,595,000 after purchasing an additional 545 shares in the last quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. raised its holdings in Microsoft by 12.8% in the fourth quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. now owns 3,283,841 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $787,530,000 after purchasing an additional 373,071 shares in the last quarter. Beacon Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 39.7% during the fourth quarter. Beacon Capital Management LLC now owns 7,393 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,773,000 after acquiring an additional 2,101 shares in the last quarter. Denver Wealth Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Denver Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,348 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $323,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TruWealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. TruWealth Advisors LLC now owns 94,749 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $22,723,000 after acquiring an additional 2,591 shares in the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft Trading Up 3.2 %

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $304.83 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $272.55 and its two-hundred day moving average is $252.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a current ratio of 1.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.27 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.87, a PEG ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 0.93. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $305.20.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.22 by $0.23. Microsoft had a return on equity of 40.12% and a net margin of 33.25%. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.01 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.22 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 6th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be paid a $0.68 dividend. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.89%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 30.22%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on MSFT shares. KeyCorp upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $316.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 20th. DA Davidson upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $325.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $310.00 to $300.00 in a report on Monday. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price target on shares of Microsoft from $280.00 to $322.00 in a report on Monday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and thirty-three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $322.88.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total transaction of $269,380.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 117,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total transaction of $269,380.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 117,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total value 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. Insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock valued at $1,728,111 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Microsoft Company Profile

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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.