Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD Trims Stock Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD lessened its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 13.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 13,543 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 2,147 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up about 2.4% of Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD’s holdings, making the stock its 15th biggest position. Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $7,014,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. WFA Asset Management Corp increased its stake in Microsoft by 27.0% in the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $427,000 after acquiring an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC raised its stake in Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. lifted its position in Microsoft by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft Price Performance

MSFT opened at $430.29 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.39. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $475.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $499.71. The firm has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.91, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $555.45.

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

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total value of $1,364,352.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Evercore ISI lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $640.00 to $580.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their price target on Microsoft from $630.00 to $575.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Raymond James Financial cut their price objective on Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Guggenheim reissued a “buy” rating and set a $586.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, New Street Research upped their target price on Microsoft from $670.00 to $675.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $597.73.

Key Microsoft News

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

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).