Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Bought by O Brien Wealth Partners LLC

O Brien Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 156.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,784 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 2,915 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for about 0.3% of O Brien Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 27th biggest holding. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $2,478,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in MSFT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft during the second quarter worth $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Microsoft during the 1st quarter worth about $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in Microsoft by 49,640.3% in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Microsoft by 2.0% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 705,077,786 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $350,712,742,000 after purchasing an additional 13,691,572 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft

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.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Mizuho lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $640.00 to $620.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Robert W. Baird started coverage on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday, November 14th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $600.00 price target for the company. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Microsoft to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Finally, TD Cowen decreased their target price on Microsoft from $655.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $618.18.

Microsoft Stock Up 3.3%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $478.69 and a two-hundred day moving average of $501.21. The company has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.07. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year 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.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other Microsoft news, 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 in the company, valued at $239,402,668.08. This represents a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the executive vice president directly 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 quarter, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

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).