Paralel Advisors LLC Buys Shares of 200,000 Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Paralel Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund bought 200,000 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $46,580,000. Microsoft makes up 3.3% of Paralel Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 9th biggest position.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.9% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 621,598,157 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $191,644,927,000 after purchasing an additional 5,648,095 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $50,302,677,000 after purchasing an additional 556,020 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 54,799,110 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $14,074,064,000 after purchasing an additional 784,656 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 40,130,443 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $10,306,701,000 after purchasing an additional 939,396 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 39,863,273 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $12,290,246,000 after purchasing an additional 766,487 shares during the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total transaction of $269,380.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 117,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,614,975.56. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $269.38, for a total value of $269,380.00. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 117,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,614,975.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total value of $1,186,410.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 788,625 shares in the company, valued at approximately $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 6,767 shares of company stock valued at $1,728,111 over the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $251.11 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a current ratio of 1.93. Microsoft Co. has a 52 week low of $213.43 and a 52 week high of $315.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.87 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.90, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 0.92. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $246.88 and its 200-day moving average is $247.21.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.27 by $0.05. Microsoft had a return on equity of 39.87% and a net margin of 33.05%. The business had revenue of $52.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $53.17 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.48 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Microsoft from $290.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 25th. Wolfe Research cut their price target on Microsoft from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 25th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $310.00 price target on Microsoft in a report on Monday. BMO Capital Markets lowered Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $267.00 to $265.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 25th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price target on Microsoft from $247.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $285.58.

About Microsoft

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Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment consists of Office Commercial (Office 365 subscriptions, the Office 365 portion of Microsoft 365 Commercial subscriptions, and Office licensed on-premises), Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, Office Consumer, including Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other Office services, LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Premium Subscriptions, Sales Solutions, and Learning Solutions, Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, comprising a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, Customer Insights, Power Apps, and Power Automate, and on-premises ERP and CRM applications.