Charter Research & Investment Group Inc. Trims Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Posted by Defense World Staff on Jun 11th, 2023

Charter Research & Investment Group Inc. cut its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 19.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,136 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 500 shares during the quarter. Charter Research & Investment Group Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $512,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. UBS Group increased their price objective on Microsoft from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Microsoft from $307.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Microsoft from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. DA Davidson increased their price objective on Microsoft from $325.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Microsoft from $347.00 to $385.00 in a research report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.74.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In related news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.09, for a total transaction of $9,182,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 117,456 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,952,107.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Microsoft news, Director Teri List sold 1,250 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Friday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $334.77, for a total value of $418,462.50. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 874 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $292,588.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Judson Althoff sold 30,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Monday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.09, for a total value of $9,182,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,456 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,952,107.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 51,331 shares of company stock valued at $15,867,278 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.5 %

MSFT opened at $326.79 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $2.43 trillion, a PE ratio of 35.41, a PEG ratio of 2.89 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a quick ratio of 1.88, a current ratio of 1.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The business has a 50 day moving average of $306.82 and a 200-day moving average of $271.12. Microsoft Co. has a 52 week low of $213.43 and a 52 week high of $338.56.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last posted 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 38.98% and a net margin of 33.25%. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.01 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.22 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 9.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 18th were given a dividend of $0.68 per share. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.83%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 29.47%.

Microsoft 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.