Northeast Financial Group Inc. Grows Stock Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Northeast Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 13.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 5,459 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 660 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up approximately 0.9% of Northeast Financial Group Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 24th largest holding. Northeast Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $2,350,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. First National Bank Sioux Falls increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% during the second quarter. First National Bank Sioux Falls now owns 6,340 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,834,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. BCK Partners Inc. increased its stake in Microsoft by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. BCK Partners Inc. now owns 1,353 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $582,000 after buying an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Wealth Management raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Wealth Management now owns 9,640 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,309,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares during the last quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.8% in the second quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 3,255 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,455,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Conscious Wealth Investments LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% during the second quarter. Conscious Wealth Investments LLC now owns 6,986 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $3,108,000 after purchasing an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MSFT has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $550.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. KeyCorp increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. StockNews.com upgraded Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Cantor Fitzgerald started coverage on Microsoft in a research report on Friday, January 17th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $509.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, October 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-seven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $512.93.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.1 %

MSFT opened at $428.50 on Wednesday. Microsoft Co. has a 52 week low of $385.58 and a 52 week high of $468.35. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $429.54 and a 200-day simple moving average of $425.92. The firm has a market cap of $3.19 trillion, a P/E ratio of 35.35, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a quick ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.10 by $0.20. Microsoft had a return on equity of 34.56% and a net margin of 35.61%. The business had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $64.57 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.99 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 12.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.39%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $417.00, for a total transaction of $10,425,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $48,911,598. The trade was a 17.57 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $447.41, for a total value of $1,118,525.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 49,352 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,080,578.32. This trade represents a 4.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, 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.