2,913,482 Shares in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Bought by Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio

Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio purchased a new stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 2,913,482 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $1,086,787,000. Microsoft makes up 3.2% of Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio’s portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest holding.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.7% during the 2nd quarter. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,473 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $549,000 after acquiring an additional 24 shares during the period. Friedenthal Financial boosted its stake in Microsoft by 6.2% during the first quarter. Friedenthal Financial now owns 431 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $160,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Sequent Planning LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft by 0.7% during the first quarter. Sequent Planning LLC now owns 3,733 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,382,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Lee Johnson Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 3.8% in the second quarter. Lee Johnson Capital Management LLC now owns 687 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $256,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares during the period. Finally, Riverpoint Wealth Management Holdings LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 0.5% in the first quarter. Riverpoint Wealth Management Holdings LLC now owns 5,543 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,052,000 after purchasing an additional 26 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $532.95 on Thursday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $507.45 and its 200 day moving average is $444.58. Microsoft Corporation has a 12-month low of $349.20 and a 12-month high of $553.72. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The stock has a market cap of $3.96 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.67, a P/E/G ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 1.10.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $3.65 EPS. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.98 per share. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 20.27%.

Key Stories Impacting Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Expectations are building for another earnings beat, with demand for Azure cloud infrastructure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot supporting revenue and earnings growth. The key catalyst will be Microsoft’s October 28 report, where investors will look for accelerating Azure growth and evidence that AI investments are translating into monetization. Microsoft Earnings Preview
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft remains viewed favorably as a relatively cash-generative way to participate in the AI-cloud buildout. While Oracle’s cloud growth is faster, Microsoft’s stronger free cash flow, lower leverage and broad enterprise installed base may provide greater financial resilience as AI capital expenditures rise. Oracle Versus Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: A new Boeing fleet-intelligence platform, Dataliner, is being built on Microsoft Azure AI Foundry. The partnership could add a recurring enterprise workload for Azure and demonstrate Microsoft’s ability to embed AI in industry-specific applications. Boeing and Microsoft Dataliner
• Positive Sentiment: Tavant’s Microsoft Fabric accelerator is now available through Microsoft Marketplace, potentially making it easier for businesses to deploy Fabric-based analytics and AI solutions across Azure. Tavant Fabric Accelerator
• Neutral Sentiment: GitHub Copilot is reportedly a major customer of Anthropic, highlighting demand for Microsoft’s AI developer tools but also exposing reliance on outside model providers and potential supplier concentration risk. Anthropic Revenue Concentration
• Negative Sentiment: Microsoft’s withdrawal as anchor tenant from a U.K. AI data-center project because of power-supply delays underscores a growing constraint: electricity and grid access may slow Azure’s AI capacity expansion and increase infrastructure costs. Microsoft Withdraws From UK AI Data Center Project
• Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that elevated prices for components could make Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox, Project Helix, less competitive or pressure demand. The gaming business is also undergoing restructuring, adding uncertainty beyond Azure and productivity software. Project Helix Pricing Concerns

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $575.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $530.00 to $575.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 22nd. William Blair assumed coverage on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, October 5th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Microsoft from $515.00 to $600.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Evercore raised Microsoft from an “underperform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 5th. Forty-three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $592.15.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $244,092,173.98. The trade was a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total transaction of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at $49,007,086.83. This represents a 9.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 150,314 shares of company stock valued at $75,404,992. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital platforms. Its products and services are used by consumers, businesses, governments and educational institutions worldwide.

The company’s principal offerings include the Windows operating system; Microsoft 365 productivity applications such as Word, Excel, Teams and Outlook; Azure cloud computing and infrastructure services; Dynamics business applications; and enterprise security solutions.