Wells Fargo & Company Raises Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $480.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its target price increased by equities research analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $460.00 to $480.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has an “overweight” rating on the software giant’s stock. Wells Fargo & Company‘s price target would indicate a potential upside of 16.49% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other equities analysts have also weighed in on the stock. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $471.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $400.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $455.00 to $465.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $465.00 to $550.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 1st. Finally, KeyCorp started coverage on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, March 21st. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $490.00 target price for the company. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $431.03.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT traded down $2.51 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $412.07. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 11,653,923 shares, compared to its average volume of 21,814,535. 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 stock has a market cap of $3.06 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.32, a P/E/G ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.89. Microsoft has a 12 month low of $275.37 and a 12 month high of $430.82. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $415.53 and a 200-day simple moving average of $383.95.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted 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. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.40% and a net margin of 36.27%. The business had revenue of $62.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $61.14 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.32 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Microsoft will post 11.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $64,538,265.44. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 45,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.78, for a total transaction of $18,530,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 21,955 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $403.96, for a total value of $8,868,941.80. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 159,764 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,538,265.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 1,070,258 shares of company stock valued at $30,690,456. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. Monumental Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Microsoft during the 1st quarter worth about $28,000. Friedenthal Financial purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at about $45,000. Bellevue Group AG purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at about $46,000. Neo Ivy Capital Management purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at about $58,000. Finally, Atlantic Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 534.5% in the 2nd quarter. Atlantic Private Wealth LLC now owns 184 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $63,000 after buying an additional 155 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

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.