Van ECK Associates Corp Buys 59,662 Shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by Defense World Staff on Jun 3rd, 2023

Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 5.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,168,316 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 59,662 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $280,185,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of MSFT. Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 20,553,188 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 6,129,708 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank increased its holdings in 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 period. Cottage Street Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 17,734.7% during the 4th quarter. Cottage Street Advisors LLC now owns 3,763,300 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,351,000 after purchasing an additional 3,742,199 shares during the period. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 73.8% in the 3rd quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 8,172,257 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,903,319,000 after acquiring an additional 3,471,095 shares during the period. 69.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $335.40 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a one year low of $213.43 and a one year high of $337.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.88 and a current ratio of 1.91. The stock has a market cap of $2.49 trillion, a PE ratio of 36.34, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 0.93. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $302.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $267.91.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.01 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.98% and a net margin of 33.25%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.22 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 18th will be given a $0.68 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.81%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 29.47%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $310.05, for a total transaction of $1,550,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 110,206 shares in the company, valued at $34,169,370.30. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $310.05, for a total transaction of $1,550,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 110,206 shares in the company, valued at $34,169,370.30. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,081 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.54, for a total value of $1,588,015.74. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 94,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $29,481,273.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 50,081 shares of company stock worth $15,448,816. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. Wedbush boosted their price target on Microsoft from $340.00 to $375.00 in a research report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on Microsoft from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Macquarie raised Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $260.00 to $325.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Wolfe Research upped their target price on Microsoft from $330.00 to $350.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their target price on Microsoft from $310.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and thirty-two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Microsoft has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.72.

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.