Power Corp of Canada Acquires New Stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Power Corp of Canada acquired a new stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 87,545 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $20,389,000. Microsoft comprises 3.0% of Power Corp of Canada’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Monumental Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Microsoft in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 71.4% during the third quarter. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. now owns 132 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 55 shares in the last quarter. Grayhawk Investment Strategies Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the second quarter worth $104,000. Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the third quarter worth $82,000. Finally, Avondale Wealth Management lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 58.6% during the third quarter. Avondale Wealth Management now owns 406 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $95,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Microsoft from $290.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $305.00 target price on Microsoft and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Royal Bank of Canada set a $285.00 target price on Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. DA Davidson increased their target price on Microsoft from $280.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group set a $285.00 price objective on Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, March 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and twenty-seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $285.58.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $265.44 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.93 and a quick ratio of 1.89. Microsoft Co. has a one year low of $213.43 and a one year high of $315.95. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $250.14 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $245.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.98 trillion, a PE ratio of 29.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.92.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 24th. The software giant reported $2.32 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 analyst estimates of $53.17 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.48 earnings per share. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. will post 9.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 6th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.68 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.02%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 30.22%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at $31,687,699.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.32, for a total transaction of $272,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 116,362 shares in the company, valued at $31,687,699.84. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were 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 owns 788,625 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $196,272,990. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,767 shares of company stock worth $1,728,111. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft 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.