Index Fund Advisors Inc. Boosts Stock Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Index Fund Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 34.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,385 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,388 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up about 0.2% of Index Fund Advisors Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 27th largest holding. Index Fund Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $4,861,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. DSM Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 19.5% during the third quarter. DSM Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,651,420 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $855,353,000 after purchasing an additional 268,937 shares in the last quarter. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 156.0% in the 3rd quarter. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC now owns 4,784 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,478,000 after purchasing an additional 2,915 shares in the last quarter. Tilson Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in Microsoft by 9.5% during the 3rd quarter. Tilson Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,810 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,456,000 after purchasing an additional 243 shares during the last quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 3.0% during the third quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 40,265 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $20,855,000 after buying an additional 1,159 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gunderson Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 5.5% during the third quarter. Gunderson Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,628 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $3,433,000 after buying an additional 347 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the 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 transaction, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,577,620.48. This trade represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 over the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on MSFT. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on shares of Microsoft from $650.00 to $625.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their target price on Microsoft from $639.00 to $590.00 in a report on Thursday. UBS Group dropped their price target on Microsoft from $650.00 to $600.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $625.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $618.18.

Microsoft Trading Up 3.3%

MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a PE ratio of 33.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.07. Microsoft Corporation has a one year low of $344.79 and a one year high of $555.45. 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 business’s 50 day moving average price is $478.69 and its 200 day moving average price is $501.21.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its 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. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.45% and a net margin of 35.71%.The company had revenue of $77.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $75.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.30 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 19th will be given 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 is presently 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).