MetLife Investment Management LLC Has $533.55 Million Stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

MetLife Investment Management LLC cut its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,290,894 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 30,735 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up approximately 2.1% of MetLife Investment Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest position. MetLife Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $533,549,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 0.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 621,598,157 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $191,644,927,000 after buying an additional 5,648,095 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% during the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $50,302,677,000 after purchasing an additional 556,020 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 54,799,110 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $14,074,064,000 after purchasing an additional 784,656 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its stake in Microsoft by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 40,345,546 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,396,477,000 after buying an additional 215,103 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake 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 valued at $12,290,246,000 after buying an additional 766,487 shares during the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on MSFT. Royal Bank of Canada set a $285.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, January 25th. UBS Group set a $250.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday, February 8th. Rosenblatt Securities lowered their price target on shares of Microsoft from $285.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $305.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and twenty-seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $285.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.88, for a total transaction of $1,186,410.96. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 788,625 shares in the company, valued at approximately $196,272,990. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction 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 in the company, valued at approximately $31,687,699.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of Microsoft 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 in the company, valued at $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 6,767 shares of company stock worth $1,728,111. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $248.59 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $248.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $245.53. Microsoft Co. has a 12-month low of $213.43 and a 12-month high of $315.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.93, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The company has a market cap of $1.85 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.62, a PEG ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.92.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last posted 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 net margin of 33.05% and a return on equity of 39.87%. The business had revenue of $52.75 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $53.17 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.48 EPS. Microsoft’s revenue was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.