In a research note distributed to clients on Tuesday, analysts at Barclays decreased their target price for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) from $296.00 to $280.00. The information was provided in a report that The Fly published. According to the price forecast that Barclays provided, the value of each share might increase by 23.28 percent compared to its most recent closing price.
The stock in question has also been the subject of commentary from the perspectives of several other research analysts. Evercore ISI downgraded their price objective on Microsoft shares from $330.00 to $300.00 and upgraded the stock to “outperform” in a research note published on Wednesday, October 26. In a research report that was made public on October 26, Raymond James lowered their “outperform” rating on Microsoft and lowered their price objective on the company from $300 to $280. Both of these changes were made. The DA Davidson report that was distributed on January 4 made Microsoft the primary topic of discussion throughout its entirety. They suggested that the stock be purchased for $270.00 per share and established a price objective of $270.00 for the stock. Wedbush rated Microsoft as an “outperform” investment in a report released on Wednesday, October 26, and decreased their price objective for the company from $320.00 to $290.00. The report was published on the web. In a research note published on October 26, Mizuho lowered their “buy” rating and price objective on Microsoft from $320.00 to $305.00. The previous price objective was set at $320.00. The research analysts have divided their opinions on the stock, with thirty recommending purchases and four recommending that the stock be held. The information that can be found on Bloomberg.com suggests that the current consensus regarding the company is that it is a “Moderate Buy” and that the average price objective for the stock is $293.85.
NASDAQ: MSFT began its trading session on Tuesday at $227.12 per share. The debt-to-equity ratio is 0.26, the current ratio is 1.84, and the quick ratio is 1.79. All of these numbers are very close to each other. Because the company has a market value of $1.69 trillion, a P/E ratio of 24.47, a PEG ratio of 2.20, and a beta value of 0.94, it possesses adequate financial resources. The price of a share of Microsoft’s stock has reached a one-year high of $323.41, while the company’s stock has fallen to a one-year low of $213.43. The moving average for the stock over the past 50 days is $240.21, and the moving average for the past 200 days is $251.47.
On Tuesday, October 25, 2018, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) disseminated its most recent earnings report to the public. The most successful software company in the world reported quarterly earnings per share of $2.35, which is $0.06 higher than the consensus estimate of $2.29. Observers of the market predicted that the company would bring in sales of $49.70 billion for the quarter, but it brought in sales of $50.12 billion instead. Microsoft’s return on equity was calculated to be 42.10%, and the company’s net margin was calculated to be 34.37%. Compared to the previous year, the increase in the company’s revenue was 10.6 percentage points higher. The company generated earnings of $2.27 per share during the same period in the prior year’s operations. The current fiscal year of Microsoft is expected to result in earnings of $9.53 per share, as stated by projections made by professionals within the industry.
Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft, sold 24,144 shares on December 1. Because of the sale of the shares, the total revenue was $6,139,094.88, and the average price per share was $254.27. After the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president gained direct ownership of 150,047 shares of the company’s stock, which have a combined value of approximately $38,152,450.69. One can find a copy of the case file in which the transaction was disclosed on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website. The file contains information about the transaction. Only 0.03% of the total shares are held by those working within the company.
Recent stock purchases and sales have involved participation from various institutional investors, including hedge funds, among other investment vehicles. The percentage of Microsoft stock that DGS Capital Management LLC owns went up by 19.9% during the first three months of the year after the company increased its holdings. DGS Capital Management LLC now holds a total of 14,342 shares of the publicly traded company, which has a market cap of $4,422,000. This resulted from the acquisition of 2,383 additional shares during the preceding quarter. IFM Investors Pty Ltd. increased the amount of Microsoft stock that is owned by 20.8% over the first three months of the year. IFM Investors Pty Ltd now owns 1,138,469 shares, with a market cap of $351,001,000,000, after making an additional purchase during the most recent quarter. This brings the total number of shares the company holds to 1,138,469; during the first three months of 2018, Altus Wealth Group LLC saw a 1.2% increase in the proportion of Microsoft stock it owned. After making an additional purchase of 152 shares during the most recent quarter, Altus Wealth Group LLC now has 12,712 shares of the software giant’s stock. The holdings of this stock owned by Altus Wealth Group LLC are worth $3,919,000. Powell Investment Advisors LLC increased the amount of Microsoft stock that is owned by 16.2 percent over the first three months of the year. After purchasing an additional 359 shares during the most recent quarter, Powell Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,578 of the company’s shares, giving it a market valuation of $795,000,000. And finally, during the first three months of this year, Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC increased the amount of Microsoft stock it owns by 8.2%, bringing the total to $1. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC now owns 6,782 shares of the software giant’s stock, which has a market value of $1,921,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the most recent quarter. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC’s stock portfolio has a value of $1,921,000. To the tune of 69.15% of the company’s stock, institutional investors and hedge funds are the holders of the company’s shares.
The Microsoft Corporation not only develops new software, services, products, and solution offerings on a global scale but also makes these offerings available for licensing and ensures that they are kept up to date. The company is structured with three separate departments, which are referred to as the “productivity and business processes department,” “intelligent cloud computing department,” and “personal computing department.” The Productivity and Business Processes segment includes the sub-segments: Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft Viva, and Skype for Business. This section also includes Skype, Outlook.com, OneDrive, LinkedIn, and Dynamics 365, a collection of business solutions for organizations and enterprise divisions hosted in the cloud and on-premises. This category also includes Microsoft’s Viva product line.
