New York State Teachers Retirement System Has $3.22 Billion Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

New York State Teachers Retirement System reduced its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 6,220,138 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 69,682 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for about 6.3% of New York State Teachers Retirement System’s portfolio, making the stock its 2nd largest position. New York State Teachers Retirement System’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $3,221,720,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. WFA Asset Management Corp grew its position in Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after acquiring an additional 216 shares during the period. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 410.4% in the 3rd quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,000,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.4% during the 4th 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. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have weighed in on MSFT shares. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $640.00 to $620.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird set a $540.00 price target on Microsoft and gave the stock an “outperform” rating 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 research report on Thursday, October 30th. HSBC reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $667.00 to $588.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $600.00 price target (down from $650.00) on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. One research 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, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $597.73.

More 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 Stock Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $430.29 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a PE ratio of 26.91, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $555.45. The company’s 50-day moving average is $475.83 and its two-hundred day moving average is $499.66.

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

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced 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 is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 22.76%.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of Microsoft 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 completion of 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, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value of $6,266,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, 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 position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 in the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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).