Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC Reduces Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC cut its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 78.3% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,075 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 3,884 shares during the quarter. Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $557,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. WFA Asset Management Corp grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% in the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $427,000 after acquiring an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the period. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its stake in Microsoft by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $478.69 and a two-hundred day moving average of $501.18. The company has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.14, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.65 by $0.48. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.71% and a return on equity of 32.45%. The company had revenue of $77.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $75.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.30 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 25.89%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total transaction of $19,967,640.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $239,402,668.08. The trade was a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, 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 transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, January 18th. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $650.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Raymond James Financial decreased their target price on Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on Microsoft from $665.00 to $630.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $618.18.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: New AI and robotics announcements — Microsoft unveiled robotics/agentic AI initiatives and pushed further into agentic AI for retail and frontline use, boosting enthusiasm that its product roadmap will translate into revenue from AI workloads. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Defense cloud contract — Microsoft won a sizable Air Force Cloud One task order (~$170M) that validates Azure’s position in government/defense spending and provides a tangible near‑term revenue win. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Investor reassessment of valuation — After recent weakness MSFT is seeing a rebound as analysts and market commentators highlight Microsoft’s relative growth, profitability and balance‑sheet strength versus software peers. That sentiment helped the stock move back up today. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst reaffirmations and mixed targets — Several firms (Jefferies, Guggenheim, UBS) kept Buy ratings even as many groups trimmed price targets; that leaves a mix of support and pressure in the tape heading into earnings. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple price‑target cuts and downgrades — A wave of target trims (Cantor Fitzgerald, Wells Fargo adjustments, Rothschild/Redburn cuts and other downgrades) is adding selling pressure and keeps expectations muted into the Jan. 28 earnings print. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Service outages and security/privacy headlines — Recent widespread Microsoft 365/Outlook outages disrupted customers and raised reliability concerns; separate reports about providing BitLocker recovery keys to the FBI introduce potential reputational/privacy scrutiny. Read More.

Microsoft Company Profile

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).