Microsoft Corporation $MSFT is Diamant Asset Management Inc.’s 3rd Largest Position

Diamant Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 38,442.1% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,810,388 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 6,792,718 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for about 8.3% of Diamant Asset Management Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest holding. Diamant Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $2,521,001,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC boosted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Bernzott Capital Advisors purchased a new position in Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. Timmons Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Fairway Wealth LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 287.0% in the fourth quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the last quarter. Finally, LSV Asset Management purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on MSFT shares. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $502.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, June 4th. BNP Paribas Exane lowered their price target on shares of Microsoft from $556.00 to $555.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 1st. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $415.00 to $400.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 25th. Tigress Financial raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $595.00 to $680.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Truist Financial decreased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $675.00 to $575.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Forty equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $560.75.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and bullish commentators continue to argue that Microsoft’s AI and Azure businesses can offset near-term pain, with reports highlighting strong cloud spending, Azure market-share gains, and the company’s “orchestration” opportunity in enterprise AI. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: DA Davidson reaffirmed a Buy rating and a $550 price target, reinforcing the view that MSFT still has meaningful upside if AI monetization and cloud growth continue. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft is also getting attention for product-streamlining moves, including plans to consolidate Copilot into a unified app and strengthen enterprise AI workflows, which could improve focus but won’t move results immediately. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: There was also a separate report that a new federal bill could require AI-generated content to be labeled, which may affect Microsoft’s AI products in the future but does not appear to be an immediate earnings driver. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: The biggest drag is the Xbox reset: Microsoft is cutting thousands of gaming jobs, spinning off studios, and acknowledging the business is “not healthy,” which raises concerns about execution and profitability in gaming. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Investors are also worrying that Microsoft’s aggressive AI infrastructure spending and higher memory costs could pressure margins, even as the company tries to show that the cuts improve efficiency. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Ongoing class-action and securities-fraud headlines are adding overhang, keeping some investors cautious while legal claims tied to prior AI disclosures work through the courts. Article Title

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Microsoft news, 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly 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. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Amy Coleman sold 1,262 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.34, for a total value of $519,111.08. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 46,003 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,922,874.02. The trade was a 2.67% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 23,762 shares of company stock valued at $10,508,361 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $386.74 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $2.87 trillion, a P/E ratio of 23.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.13. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $406.14 and its 200 day simple moving average is $417.46. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The software giant reported $4.27 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 business had revenue of $82.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $81.44 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.46 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.76 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 20th will be paid a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 20th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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).