Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is Roman Butler Fullerton & Co.’s 2nd Largest Position

Roman Butler Fullerton & Co. boosted its holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 0.9% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,718 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 298 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up 4.1% of Roman Butler Fullerton & Co.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd biggest holding. Roman Butler Fullerton & Co.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $14,119,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in Microsoft by 48,526.1% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 38,501,645 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $16,567,258,000 after purchasing an additional 38,422,466 shares in the last quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 47,196.6% in the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,160,850,000 after acquiring an additional 4,824,436 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in Microsoft by 67.5% during the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 5,963,863 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,566,250,000 after acquiring an additional 2,404,348 shares in the last quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd raised its holdings in Microsoft by 56.9% in the third quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 5,344,566 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,299,767,000 after purchasing an additional 1,938,304 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Strategic Financial Concepts LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 31,648.5% during the second quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC now owns 1,871,892 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $8,366,000 after purchasing an additional 1,865,996 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on MSFT shares. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $525.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Truist Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $501.00 to $500.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Microsoft from $506.00 to $548.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $509.90.

Microsoft Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $423.35 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a 1-year low of $366.50 and a 1-year high of $468.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 1.29. The company has a market cap of $3.15 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.90. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $428.62 and its 200 day moving average price is $428.35.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $65.59 billion for 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 period in the prior year, the company earned $2.99 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 12.93 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.78%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 27.39%.

Microsoft declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, September 16th that allows the company to repurchase $60.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the software giant to buy up to 1.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $417.00, for a total value of $10,425,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,294 shares in the company, valued at $48,911,598. This represents a 17.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $414.72, for a total transaction of $414,720.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 57,511 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,850,961.92. The trade was a 1.71 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 41,200 shares of company stock worth $17,383,892. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Profile

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.