Sanford C. Bernstein Issues Positive Forecast for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Stock Price

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its price target increased by Sanford C. Bernstein from $660.00 to $662.00 in a research note released on Monday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. Sanford C. Bernstein currently has an outperform rating on the software giant’s stock.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 8th. Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $530.00 to $575.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 22nd. DA Davidson reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $550.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $510.00 to $615.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 5th. Finally, Melius Research set a $665.00 target price on shares of Microsoft and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 5th. Forty-three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $590.30.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $533.52 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. Microsoft has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $553.72. The company has a market cap of $3.96 trillion, a P/E ratio of 30.62, a P/E/G ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.10. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $506.08 and a 200 day simple moving average of $442.31.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%. Microsoft’s revenue was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.65 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Microsoft will post 19.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total transaction of $4,878,900.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,007,086.83. The trade was a 9.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. This represents a 10.13% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 150,314 shares of company stock worth $75,404,992 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Montgomery Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Frankly Finances LLC bought a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth $35,000. Bard Associates Inc. bought a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth $37,000. PMV Capital Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at $38,000. Finally, Fiduciary Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 37.4% during the 2nd quarter. Fiduciary Advisors Inc. now owns 125 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $47,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

More Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft received a bullish signal ahead of its Oct. 28 earnings report after Bernstein raised its price target to $662 and maintained an “Outperform” rating. Investors are watching Azure growth, commercial remaining performance obligations, and whether Microsoft’s more than $115 billion in recent capital spending is translating into AI revenue. Microsoft Given New Price Target at Sanford C. Bernstein
• Positive Sentiment: The company unveiled its Maia 300 AI accelerator and plans multi-gigawatt deployments beginning next year. The chip could reduce Microsoft’s reliance on Nvidia and lower inference costs, supporting the long-term economics of its AI infrastructure strategy. Microsoft’s New AI Chip Could Change the Economics of AI
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft introduced security controls for enterprise AI agents and emphasized that frontier models can pose insider-threat-like risks. The initiative could strengthen demand for Microsoft’s security products as businesses adopt agentic AI. Microsoft Introduces Security Features for AI Agents
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to view Microsoft as a broad way to monetize AI through Azure, Copilot, software subscriptions, and security. Expectations call for Azure growth of roughly 45%, though capacity constraints could limit near-term upside. Microsoft Earnings Preview
• Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft withdrew as anchor customer from Nscale’s planned U.K. AI data center, reportedly because of electricity-grid and power-supply delays. The decision highlights infrastructure constraints but may also reflect disciplined capital allocation; third-party operators could benefit if hyperscalers build less capacity themselves. Microsoft Pulls Out of U.K. Data Center Deal
• Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that Microsoft’s aggressive AI capital expenditures could pressure free cash flow and margins if Azure monetization does not accelerate. One analyst also said Maia remains well behind Nvidia and Google’s custom chips, limiting its near-term competitive impact. Microsoft AI Bull Case and Valuation Risks

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.