Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Position Trimmed by Hickory Lane Capital Management LP

Hickory Lane Capital Management LP decreased its holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 11.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 24,000 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 3,000 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up approximately 5.8% of Hickory Lane Capital Management LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 4th largest position. Hickory Lane Capital Management LP’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $5,590,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Phoenix Wealth Advisors lifted its position in Microsoft by 2.0% in the second quarter. Phoenix Wealth Advisors now owns 17,286 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,440,000 after acquiring an additional 343 shares during the last quarter. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 199.7% in the third quarter. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd now owns 107,705 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $25,356,000 after purchasing an additional 71,769 shares in the last quarter. Seascape Capital Management lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 41.9% during the third quarter. Seascape Capital Management now owns 2,908 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $677,000 after buying an additional 858 shares during the period. Verity & Verity LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 6.4% during the second quarter. Verity & Verity LLC now owns 67,872 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $17,432,000 after purchasing an additional 4,081 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in Microsoft by 9.2% during the third quarter. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. now owns 7,751 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,943,000 after purchasing an additional 650 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on MSFT. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $290.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 25th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 8th. DA Davidson raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $280.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $296.00 to $280.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 10th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 27th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given 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 a consensus price target of $285.58.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $252.32 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $248.53 and its 200 day moving average is $245.95. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $315.95. The company has a market capitalization of $1.88 trillion, a PE ratio of 28.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.92. 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 (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 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 the consensus estimate of $53.17 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.48 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total value of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at $31,687,699.84. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total value of $1,186,410.96. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 788,625 shares of the company’s stock, 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 ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Microsoft Company Profile

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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.