14,085 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Purchased by Old North State Trust LLC

Old North State Trust LLC bought a new position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 14,085 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $5,254,000. Microsoft makes up about 2.7% of Old North State Trust LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 5th largest position.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management raised its position in Microsoft by 4.0% in the 2nd quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 229,490 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $85,604,000 after buying an additional 8,773 shares during the last quarter. D.B. Root & Company LLC bought a new position in Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at about $3,652,000. Markel Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Markel Group Inc. now owns 537,630 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $199,014,000 after acquiring an additional 1,950 shares during the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 8.4% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 6,921,677 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,562,197,000 after acquiring an additional 537,634 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. lifted its position in Microsoft by 138.8% during the first quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. now owns 1,356,359 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $502,077,000 after purchasing an additional 788,297 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft News Summary

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 Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on MSFT shares. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, September 10th. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $440.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, September 21st. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $510.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 15th. 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 research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $592.15.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, EVP Amy Hood sold 7,305 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $545.42, for a total value of $3,984,293.10. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 555,396 shares in the company, valued at approximately $302,924,086.32. This represents a 1.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total value of $2,388,068.80. Following 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 ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 150,314 shares of company stock worth $75,404,992. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Microsoft Stock Performance

MSFT opened at $532.95 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $507.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $444.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22. The firm has a market cap of $3.96 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.67, a PEG ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 1.10. Microsoft Corporation has a 1-year low of $349.20 and a 1-year high of $553.72.

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

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be paid a $0.98 dividend. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.27%.

Microsoft Profile

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.