Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft Cuts Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $575.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its price objective reduced by Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft from $630.00 to $575.00 in a research report report published on Thursday morning, MarketBeat reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft currently has a buy rating on the software giant’s stock.

Several other research firms also recently commented on MSFT. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $650.00 to $600.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. DZ Bank reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Rothschild Redb cut shares of Microsoft from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 18th. Wedbush cut their price objective on Microsoft from $625.00 to $575.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $632.00 to $659.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $597.73.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $430.29 on Thursday. 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 has a fifty day simple moving average of $475.83 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $499.66. The firm has a market cap 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. Microsoft has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.23 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Microsoft will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 19th will be paid 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 related news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value of $6,266,880.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,577,620.48. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872 in the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 717,942,580 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $347,211,391,000 after buying an additional 15,955,898 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $148,823,341,000 after buying an additional 3,166,275 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Microsoft by 2.0% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $88,714,256,000 after acquiring an additional 3,532,054 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at $50,493,678,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 16.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,316,535,000 after acquiring an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories 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

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).