Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Shares Down 0.3% on Analyst Downgrade

Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares were down 0.3% during trading on Thursday after Citigroup lowered their price target on the stock from $480.00 to $475.00. Citigroup currently has a buy rating on the stock. Microsoft traded as low as $407.09 and last traded at $410.57. Approximately 5,313,024 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 75% from the average daily volume of 21,650,094 shares. The stock had previously closed at $411.84.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on MSFT. Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, March 25th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Microsoft from $465.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 1st. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Microsoft from $455.00 to $465.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Microsoft from $460.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Microsoft from $421.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $432.13.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total value of $18,530,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 574,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $236,414,839.62. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total value of $18,530,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 574,129 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $236,414,839.62. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Corp Microsoft sold 1,000,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $1.95, for a total transaction of $1,950,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 11,677,398 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $22,770,926.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 1,070,258 shares of company stock worth $30,690,456 in the last quarter. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 664,908,939 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $250,032,357,000 after purchasing an additional 15,701,937 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $68,824,173,000 after acquiring an additional 1,951,554 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.7% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 215,874,152 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $68,162,263,000 after acquiring an additional 5,762,902 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $50,302,677,000 after acquiring an additional 556,020 shares during the period. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 112,158.6% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 150,187,424 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $36,017,948,000 after acquiring an additional 150,053,637 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Microsoft Trading Down 1.3 %

The stock has a market cap of $2.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a current ratio of 1.22. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $414.86 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $384.83.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The software giant reported $2.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.76 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $62.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $61.14 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.27% and a return on equity of 38.40%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.32 EPS. Research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 11.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 16th will be paid a $0.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 15th. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is presently 27.12%.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.