Cabot Wealth Management Inc. Raises Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Cabot Wealth Management Inc. boosted its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 13,472 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 137 shares during the period. Cabot Wealth Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $5,797,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 169.2% during the second quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc now owns 70 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP acquired a new position in Microsoft in the second quarter worth about $45,000. Innealta Capital LLC acquired a new position in Microsoft in the second quarter worth about $75,000. Bellevue Group AG grew its stake in Microsoft by 47.5% in the first quarter. Bellevue Group AG now owns 180 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $76,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bbjs Financial Advisors LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 241.4% in the second quarter. Bbjs Financial Advisors LLC now owns 379 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $169,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on MSFT shares. UBS Group decreased their price target on Microsoft from $510.00 to $500.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. KeyCorp lifted their price target on Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $495.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Oppenheimer cut shares of Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein cut their target price on shares of Microsoft from $501.00 to $500.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Microsoft has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $503.03.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $431.20 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The firm has a market cap of $3.21 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 0.90. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $420.83 and a 200-day simple moving average of $426.70. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $362.90 and a fifty-two week high of $468.35.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.10 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.57 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The company’s revenue was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.99 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 12.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.77%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 27.39%.

Microsoft announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Monday, September 16th that allows the company to repurchase $60.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the software giant to purchase up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In related news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.04, for a total value of $1,027,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 50,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,552,000. This represents a 4.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Amy Hood sold 38,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $410.55, for a total value of $15,600,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 496,369 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $203,784,292.95. This represents a 7.11 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 134,578 shares of company stock valued at $55,279,956 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.03% 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.