Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Acquired by CORDA Investment Management LLC.

CORDA Investment Management LLC. grew its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 13.1% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 30,876 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 3,577 shares during the period. CORDA Investment Management LLC.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $11,429,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 51.3% during the 2nd quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Bernzott Capital Advisors purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Timmons Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter worth about $36,000. Fairway Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 287.0% during the fourth quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the period. Finally, LSV Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth about $44,000. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on MSFT. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, July 6th. Raymond James Financial cut shares of Microsoft from a “market perform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 5th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $540.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, June 4th. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $515.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, 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. Forty-two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $554.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Amy Coleman sold 1,262 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.34, for a total transaction of $519,111.08. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 46,003 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,922,874.02. This represents a 2.67% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 15,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 110,477 shares in the company, valued at $50,928,792.23. This trade represents a 12.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 23,762 shares of company stock worth $10,508,361. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

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 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $389.10 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.16, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.13. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $397.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $406.99. Microsoft Corporation has a 12 month low of $349.20 and a 12 month high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The software giant reported $4.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 in the previous year, the business posted $3.46 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.7 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, August 20th will be given a $0.91 dividend. 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 is 21.67%.

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).