Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Has $894.73 Million Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC lowered its position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 9.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,079,323 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 221,810 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for about 2.8% of Lord Abbett & CO. LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 2nd biggest position. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $894,733,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in MSFT. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 48,526.1% in 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 during the last quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 47,196.6% in the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 4,834,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,160,850,000 after purchasing an additional 4,824,436 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 165,024,812 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $70,790,682,000 after purchasing an additional 3,264,648 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 67.5% in the third 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 during the period. Finally, Baillie Gifford & Co. boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 46.1% in the third quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 7,048,244 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,032,859,000 after acquiring an additional 2,222,483 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $495.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $550.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $509.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Finally, Guggenheim reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $510.96.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $408.43 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a twelve month low of $385.58 and a twelve month high of $468.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.04 trillion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.90. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $429.47 and its 200-day moving average price is $423.04. The company has a quick ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 1.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The software giant reported $3.23 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.15 by $0.08. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.43% and a return on equity of 33.36%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.93 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 13.07 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm 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. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.81%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.73%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CMO Takeshi Numoto sold 2,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $447.41, for a total transaction of $1,118,525.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 49,352 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,080,578.32. The trade was a 4.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Judson Althoff sold 25,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $417.00, for a total transaction of $10,425,000.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 117,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $48,911,598. This represents a 17.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 34,000 shares of company stock valued at $14,333,540. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Microsoft Company 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.