Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Lowers Stake in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System decreased its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 610,300 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 2,800 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 5.3% of Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd largest position. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $316,105,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Norges Bank bought a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC lifted its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 90,533,328 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of Microsoft in the first quarter worth $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 49,640.3% in the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $14,905,904,000 after purchasing an additional 29,906,791 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 valued at $350,712,742,000 after purchasing an additional 13,691,572 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft News Roundup

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 Stock Up 3.3%

MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $478.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $501.21. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $344.79 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The stock has a market cap 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 (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.65 by $0.48. The firm had revenue of $77.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $75.49 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.45% and a net margin of 35.71%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.30 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 25.89%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value 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. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, 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 transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. The trade was a 4.86% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the subject of several analyst reports. Raymond James Financial cut 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. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $650.00 to $625.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Redburn Partners set a $450.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price target on shares of Microsoft from $655.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Three research 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 MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $618.18.

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).