Delta Investment Management LLC Cuts Stock Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Delta Investment Management LLC cut its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 54,769 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 2,112 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up about 5.1% of Delta Investment Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd largest holding. Delta Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $28,368,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 705,077,786 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $350,712,742,000 after purchasing an additional 13,691,572 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in Microsoft by 1.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $148,823,341,000 after acquiring an additional 3,166,275 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $88,714,256,000 after purchasing an additional 3,532,054 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the second quarter valued at approximately $50,493,678,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its position in Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on MSFT. DZ Bank restated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $650.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Microsoft from $650.00 to $625.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on Microsoft from $637.00 to $645.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Microsoft from $700.00 to $665.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 8th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $630.37.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total value of $1,364,352.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total transaction of $6,266,880.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. The trade was a 8.97% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Goldman Sachs and other firms reiterated bullish views (Buy/strong‑buy) citing Azure-led AI growth and compounding AI product cycles, which supports upside to MSFT valuation. Goldman Sachs coverage
• Positive Sentiment: New product / commercial traction: Microsoft is pushing agentic AI (Copilot Checkout, agentic retail automation) and expanding partner deployments (SymphonyAI, Fiserv), which can drive monetization across Microsoft 365 and Azure. Copilot retail initiatives
• Positive Sentiment: Enterprise demand signal: CIO and sell‑side surveys still point to Microsoft as a top beneficiary of rising IT/AI budgets — a structural tailwind for Azure and Copilot monetization. CIO survey / analyst notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Community‑first data‑center plan: Microsoft pledged to cover higher electricity costs, replenish water and pay local taxes to avoid community backlash — positive PR and long‑term permit facilitation, but with unclear near‑term cost impact. Data center initiative
• Neutral Sentiment: Strategic Anthropic usage: Microsoft is integrating Anthropic models into products (a potential diversification of model supply), which could improve product performance but also shifts vendor exposure. Anthropic integration report
• Negative Sentiment: Rising AI vendor spend: Reports MSFT may spend ~ $500M/year on Anthropic models raise concern about higher operating/variable AI costs and margin pressure if revenue realization lags. Anthropic spending concern
• Negative Sentiment: Macro/rotation pressure: Tech re‑rating and Fed/rate uncertainty are prompting a growth‑to‑value rotation that disproportionately hurts large AI‑growth names like Microsoft. That broader market dynamic is a major near‑term headwind. Growth-to-value rotation
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive / sentiment hits: Alphabet’s rally (and other AI partnership headlines) and criticisms around Windows quality in niche areas have weighed on MSFT momentum, contributing to today’s larger decline vs. the broader market. Competitive pressure note

Microsoft Stock Down 2.4%

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $459.38 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.41 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.67, a PEG ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.40. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $485.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $503.16. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.65 by $0.48. The company had revenue of $77.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $75.49 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.71% and a return on equity of 32.45%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.30 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 19th will be issued a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 25.89%.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).