Associated Banc Corp Acquires 4,395 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Associated Banc Corp lifted its holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 438,636 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 4,395 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 6.0% of Associated Banc Corp’s portfolio, making the stock its biggest position. Associated Banc Corp’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $227,192,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. AlphaQuest LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 5.9% in the second quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 342 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $170,000 after buying an additional 19 shares during the period. Seek First Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% during the second quarter. Seek First Inc. now owns 1,358 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $675,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Level Financial Advisors grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.8% during the second quarter. Level Financial Advisors now owns 2,680 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,333,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Red Mountain Financial LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Red Mountain Financial LLC now owns 2,761 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,373,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Finally, Onyx Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Onyx Financial Advisors LLC now owns 7,108 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,536,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Large commercial deals and partnerships underpin continued demand — Microsoft landed a major cloud customer agreement (Perplexity, reported as a $750M deal), which demonstrates Azure can win sizable AI workloads and supports future revenue. Perplexity signs $750 million AI cloud deal with Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: Long-term AI opportunity remains large — analysts and commentators note that potential liquidity events (e.g., an OpenAI IPO) and continued hyperscaler AI demand could boost infrastructure spending that benefits Microsoft’s cloud and services over time. Could A $1 Trillion OpenAI IPO Save The Day For Nvidia, Microsoft?
• Positive Sentiment: Backlog/RPO growth signals demand — Microsoft’s commercial remaining performance obligations (backlog) jumped materially year-over-year, implying multi-year contracted revenue tied to AI workloads. Microsoft demand backlog doubles to $625 billion
• Neutral Sentiment: Quarterly results were solid but mixed — MSFT beat on revenue and EPS (Q2 results) yet the company issued guidance and commentary that implied a modest moderation in Azure growth vs. prior quarter; the market is parsing growth vs. the cost profile. Microsoft Q2 earnings beat on top and bottom lines
• Neutral Sentiment: Options and sentiment flows amplify moves — unusually high call-option buying and heavy volume have increased intraday volatility and may accentuate both selloffs and snapbacks. Stock Of The Day: Is This The Bottom For Microsoft?
• Negative Sentiment: Investor backlash to capex and margin risk — the core negative: investors punished MSFT because AI capex jumped (reported ~$37.5B in the quarter) while Azure growth showed signs of slowing, raising doubts about near-term returns. That drove a sharp selloff and a big market-cap contraction. Microsoft tumbled 10% in a day and isn’t recovering premarket. Here’s why
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst cuts & guidance uncertainty — several firms trimmed price targets or flagged near-term Azure/margin risks, increasing downside pressure even as many maintain buy ratings longer term. These Analysts Slash Their Forecasts On Microsoft Following Q2 Results
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/investor scrutiny follows the shock drop — law firms have opened investigations and class-action notices have surfaced, which can keep sentiment fragile near-term. Microsoft Corporation Investigated on Behalf of Investors

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on MSFT shares. Rothschild Redb cut shares of Microsoft from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 18th. Bank of America decreased their price objective on Microsoft from $640.00 to $520.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 26th. Daiwa Capital Markets lowered their target price on Microsoft from $640.00 to $630.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price target on Microsoft from $630.00 to $575.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Redburn Partners set a $450.00 price target on Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $597.73.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $430.29 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $475.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $499.71. Microsoft Corporation has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $555.45. The firm has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.91, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.86 by $0.28. The company had revenue of $81.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $80.28 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. Microsoft’s revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.23 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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 given a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 22.76%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the business’s 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 sale, the executive vice president directly 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 this link. 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 sale, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $239,402,668.08. This represents a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

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).