Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension Increases Stock Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension increased its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 43.8% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 67,974 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 20,702 shares during the quarter. Arbejdsmarkedets Tillaegspension’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $25,162,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. AMF Tjanstepension AB grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 4.9% in the first quarter. AMF Tjanstepension AB now owns 2,827,825 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,046,776,000 after purchasing an additional 132,390 shares during the period. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 18.1% in the 1st quarter. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC now owns 4,947 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,832,000 after buying an additional 757 shares in the last quarter. Applied Finance Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 7.5% in the 1st quarter. Applied Finance Capital Management LLC now owns 126,019 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $46,649,000 after buying an additional 8,814 shares in the last quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 13.1% in the 1st quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. now owns 30,876 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $11,429,000 after buying an additional 3,577 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lifeworks Advisors LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 27.2% during the 1st quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC now owns 23,663 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,759,000 after buying an additional 5,066 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on MSFT. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $646.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Morgan Stanley began coverage on Microsoft in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. They set an “overweight” rating and a $600.00 price target for the company. Mizuho reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $515.00 to $490.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $525.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Scotiabank upgraded shares of Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 6th. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $554.73.

Insider Activity

In other Microsoft news, EVP Amy Coleman sold 1,262 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.34, for a total value of $519,111.08. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 46,003 shares in the company, valued at $18,922,874.02. The trade was a 2.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 15,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.99, for a total value of $7,145,345.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 110,477 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,928,792.23. This trade represents a 12.30% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,762 shares of company stock valued at $10,508,361. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft launched Project Perception, an agentic security platform designed to detect and respond to AI-powered cyberattacks in real time. The company also introduced its first in-house cybersecurity model, MAI-Cyber-1-Flash. The products could strengthen Microsoft’s position in the growing enterprise cybersecurity market and create additional demand for Azure and security software. Microsoft launches its first cybersecurity model and a new agentic cybersecurity system
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and investors continue to report healthy Azure and broader cloud demand, with AI demand reportedly exceeding available capacity. UBS maintained a Buy rating, while Guggenheim reaffirmed its Buy rating with a $586 price target. Consensus expectations for Wednesday call for approximately $87.42 billion in revenue and $4.21 in earnings per share. Microsoft faces AI capex scrutiny as it prepares to report Q4 results
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s expanded partnership with Mistral and its work on custom chips support the company’s strategy of making Azure a leading platform for enterprise AI workloads. Investors view continued AI adoption and cloud monetization as potential catalysts for the earnings report.
• Neutral Sentiment: The immediate focus is Microsoft’s planned roughly $190 billion in annual capital spending, a reported 61% increase. The investment could support long-term Azure growth, but the market wants evidence that cloud revenue and AI demand are growing fast enough to justify the cost. Options markets imply a potentially large post-earnings move of about 7.24%. Microsoft Plans $190 Billion of Capital Spending This Year
• Negative Sentiment: Investors have recently been less willing to reward strong technology earnings because of concerns about AI spending returns, heavy debt issuance across the AI ecosystem, and margin pressure. Microsoft’s elevated spending could therefore weigh on the stock if Azure growth or forward guidance disappoints.
• Negative Sentiment: Several law firms publicized securities class-action lawsuits alleging investor harm and misleading disclosures related to Microsoft’s Copilot positioning, data silos, and interoperability. The claims are an overhang, although their near-term financial impact is uncertain. Microsoft investor class-action announcement

Microsoft Trading Up 1.9%

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $389.10 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $555.45. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $397.52 and its 200-day moving average price is $406.99. The stock has a market cap of $2.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.16, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.13.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The software giant reported $4.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.06 by $0.21. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.34% and a return on equity of 31.94%. The firm had revenue of $82.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $81.44 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.46 earnings per share. Microsoft’s revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 20th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 21.67%.

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).