Washington Trust Bank Has $81.05 Million Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Washington Trust Bank lifted its holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 8.4% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 156,480 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,159 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 5.9% of Washington Trust Bank’s portfolio, making the stock its largest holding. Washington Trust Bank’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $81,049,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. WFA Asset Management Corp grew its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second 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 during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 410.4% during the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,144,000 after buying an additional 2,138 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. grew its position in Microsoft by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,000,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $430.29 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39. The firm 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 firm’s 50 day moving average price is $475.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $499.66. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.23 EPS. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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 issued a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.76%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MSFT has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Scotiabank cut their target price on Microsoft from $650.00 to $600.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Rothschild & Co Redburn dropped their price target on Microsoft from $500.00 to $450.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Wolfe Research reduced their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $625.00 to $530.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $660.00 to $635.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus set a $540.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. One investment 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $597.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the 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 completion of 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 ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. This trade represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 three months. 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).