Sanford C. Bernstein Boosts Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $489.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its target price raised by Sanford C. Bernstein from $465.00 to $489.00 in a report published on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Sanford C. Bernstein currently has an outperform rating on the software giant’s stock.

MSFT has been the topic of several other research reports. DA Davidson restated a buy rating and set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday, March 15th. StockNews.com lowered Microsoft from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. Piper Sandler reiterated an overweight rating and set a $455.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Microsoft from $440.00 to $470.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Microsoft from $455.00 to $465.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-two have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $452.61.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $406.32 on Friday. Microsoft has a 52-week low of $295.25 and a 52-week high of $430.82. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $414.48 and a 200 day moving average of $388.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a current ratio of 1.24. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.02 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.89.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.81 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $61.86 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $60.86 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 37.54% and a net margin of 36.43%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.45 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Microsoft will post 11.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be issued a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 15th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 25.97%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total transaction of $18,530,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 574,129 shares in the company, valued at $236,414,839.62. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total transaction of $18,530,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 574,129 shares in the company, valued at $236,414,839.62. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $64,538,265.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 1,070,258 shares of company stock valued at $30,690,456. 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. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at about $35,920,047,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $9,625,201,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 664,908,939 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $250,032,357,000 after acquiring an additional 15,701,937 shares in the last quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,000,376,000. Finally, FMR LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 2.7% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 215,874,152 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $68,162,263,000 after purchasing an additional 5,762,902 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.