Phillips Financial Management LLC Purchases 2,551 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Phillips Financial Management LLC boosted its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 39.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 9,013 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,551 shares during the quarter. Phillips Financial Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $4,668,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the topic of several analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Microsoft from $625.00 to $575.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Arete Research upped their price target on Microsoft from $710.00 to $730.00 in a report on Monday, October 27th. Redburn Partners set a $450.00 price objective on Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Wall Street Zen lowered Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, January 18th. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $600.00 price target (down previously from $610.00) on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $597.73.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of 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 stock has a market capitalization of $3.20 trillion, a PE ratio of 26.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $475.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $499.71. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.86 by $0.28. The business had revenue of $81.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $80.28 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The firm’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 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 19th will be given a dividend of $0.91 per share. 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%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the firm’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 sale, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total transaction of $19,967,640.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares in the company, valued at $239,402,668.08. This represents a 7.70% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872. Company 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).