Torray Investment Partners LLC Lowers Stock Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Torray Investment Partners LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 3.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 35,530 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,151 shares during the period. Microsoft comprises 2.5% of Torray Investment Partners LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest holding. Torray Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $18,403,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of MSFT. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at about $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its position 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 buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Microsoft in the first quarter valued at about $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 49,640.3% during the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $14,905,904,000 after acquiring an additional 29,906,791 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake 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. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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 Price Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $465.95 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07. Microsoft Corporation has a 12-month low of $344.79 and a 12-month high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 1.39. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $478.69 and its two-hundred day moving average is $501.18.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 4th. The stock was 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 owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. The trade was a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total value of $19,967,640.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider 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 SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872 over the last quarter. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, January 5th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $625.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, December 22nd. Redburn Partners set a $450.00 price target on Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $637.00 to $645.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Arete Research raised their target price on shares of Microsoft from $710.00 to $730.00 in a report on Monday, October 27th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $618.18.

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).