Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Holdings Lessened by Investment House LLC

Investment House LLC cut its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 2.3% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 207,004 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 4,945 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for approximately 5.1% of Investment House LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 3rd biggest position. Investment House LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $107,218,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. WFA Asset Management Corp increased its stake 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 purchasing an additional 216 shares during the period. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $5,658,000 after buying an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 410.4% in the 3rd quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after acquiring an additional 2,138 shares during the period. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its position in Microsoft by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC raised its stake 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 acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on MSFT. BNP Paribas Exane lifted their target price on Microsoft from $632.00 to $659.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $615.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, January 18th. Wedbush cut their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $625.00 to $575.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, UBS Group restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-nine have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $591.95.

Microsoft Price Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $398.46 on Friday. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $344.79 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.38, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $453.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $489.29. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.96 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.92, a P/E/G ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 1.08.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 business posted $3.23 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal 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 paid 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 0.9%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 22.76%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the company’s 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at $63,577,620.48. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the executive vice president directly owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. The trade was a 4.86% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft locked in a long‑duration revenue arrangement with OpenAI (20% share extended through 2032), creating a sizeable, recurring cash‑flow channel tied to the AI leader — a clear structural upside for MSFT’s AI monetization thesis. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Insider buying: director John W. Stanton purchased 5,000 shares (~$2M), a behavioral vote of confidence that can help stabilize sentiment after recent weakness. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street / institutional interest: Morgan Stanley and other firms highlight MSFT as under‑owned and many hedge funds/institutions have added to positions or maintained positive ratings — supports potential inflows if risk appetite returns. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: ESG/operational: Microsoft commits to continue matching its electricity needs with renewable purchases as it scales data‑centers, lowering regulatory/ESG risk for long‑term investors. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Growth vs. capex trade: Microsoft says it’s on pace to invest ~$50B in AI across the Global South by 2030 — a large, long‑term market expansion but one that requires heavy upfront capex and multi‑year execution. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Partnerships/enterprise traction: CrowdStrike’s Falcon is now available on Microsoft Marketplace, which increases enterprise stickiness and could drive incremental marketplace revenue over time (limited immediate impact). Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Industry moves (indirect effect): NVIDIA and Meta deepen their AI alliance and huge capex plans — this underscores relentless demand for compute but also signals competitors (Meta) spending to build infrastructure that could reduce future cloud demand. Implication for MSFT is mixed. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Near‑term selling and rotation: several pieces point to investor dumping and downgrades after a strong earnings beat — concerns that MSFT’s massive AI infrastructure spending will pressure near‑term margins have triggered profit‑taking and volatility. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Product/security jitters and sector pressure: reports of an Office/Copilot bug and research on “recommendation poisoning,” together with tech‑sector downgrades, amplify short‑term adoption and regulatory risk narratives. Read More. Read More.

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).