Rothschild & Co Redburn Cuts Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Price Target to $450.00

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its target price cut by Rothschild & Co Redburn from $500.00 to $450.00 in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday morning,MarketScreener reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the software giant’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Microsoft to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Raymond James Financial decreased their price objective on Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, October 30th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $650.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald set a $639.00 price target on Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $618.18.

Microsoft Stock Up 3.3%

MSFT stock opened at $465.95 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $478.69 and a 200-day moving average of $501.18. Microsoft has a fifty-two week low of $344.79 and a fifty-two week high of $555.45. The company has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.14, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.40.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.65 by $0.48. The business had revenue of $77.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $75.49 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.71% and a return on equity of 32.45%. The company’s revenue was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.30 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Microsoft will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 19th will be given a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 25.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total transaction of $6,266,880.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. This trade represents a 8.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872 over the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Microsoft

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Wellington Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at $9,941,000. Sound View Wealth Advisors Group LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter. Sound View Wealth Advisors Group LLC now owns 94,120 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $46,816,000 after acquiring an additional 2,373 shares during the last quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 3.8% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 922,524 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $457,119,000 after acquiring an additional 33,382 shares during the last quarter. Weaver Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 14.0% in the 3rd quarter. Weaver Capital Management LLC now owns 18,340 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,499,000 after purchasing an additional 2,247 shares during the period. Finally, Gradient Investments LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 4.3% in the third quarter. Gradient Investments LLC now owns 285,163 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $147,700,000 after buying an additional 11,770 shares during the last quarter. 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: New AI and robotics announcements — Microsoft unveiled robotics/agentic AI initiatives and pushed further into agentic AI for retail and frontline use, boosting enthusiasm that its product roadmap will translate into revenue from AI workloads. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Defense cloud contract — Microsoft won a sizable Air Force Cloud One task order (~$170M) that validates Azure’s position in government/defense spending and provides a tangible near?term revenue win. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Investor reassessment of valuation — After recent weakness MSFT is seeing a rebound as analysts and market commentators highlight Microsoft’s relative growth, profitability and balance?sheet strength versus software peers. That sentiment helped the stock move back up today. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst reaffirmations and mixed targets — Several firms (Jefferies, Guggenheim, UBS) kept Buy ratings even as many groups trimmed price targets; that leaves a mix of support and pressure in the tape heading into earnings. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple price?target cuts and downgrades — A wave of target trims (Cantor Fitzgerald, Wells Fargo adjustments, Rothschild/Redburn cuts and other downgrades) is adding selling pressure and keeps expectations muted into the Jan. 28 earnings print. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Service outages and security/privacy headlines — Recent widespread Microsoft 365/Outlook outages disrupted customers and raised reliability concerns; separate reports about providing BitLocker recovery keys to the FBI introduce potential reputational/privacy scrutiny. Read More.

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).