Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Sold by Geneos Wealth Management Inc.

Geneos Wealth Management Inc. cut its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 17.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 100,406 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 21,313 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for 1.3% of Geneos Wealth Management Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest holding. Geneos Wealth Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $52,005,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 worth $350,712,742,000 after acquiring an additional 13,691,572 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 1.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $148,823,341,000 after purchasing an additional 3,166,275 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $88,714,256,000 after purchasing an additional 3,532,054 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the second quarter worth approximately $50,493,678,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its holdings in Microsoft by 564,387.1% during 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 purchasing an additional 90,533,328 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

More 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.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Microsoft to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $625.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. HSBC raised their price objective on Microsoft from $643.00 to $648.00 in a report on Monday, October 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on Microsoft from $625.00 to $610.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $618.18.

Microsoft Stock Up 3.3%

Microsoft stock opened at $465.95 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $478.69 and a two-hundred day moving average of $501.18. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45. The stock 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. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Stockholders 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 payout ratio is presently 25.89%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total transaction of $19,967,640.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares in the company, 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 legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total transaction of $6,266,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. The trade was a 8.97% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872 over the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Microsoft 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).