Institute for Wealth Management LLC. Lowers Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Institute for Wealth Management LLC. trimmed its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 3.0% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 50,510 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,541 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises about 2.5% of Institute for Wealth Management LLC.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest holding. Institute for Wealth Management LLC.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $12,113,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. DGS Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 19.9% in the 1st quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC now owns 14,342 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,422,000 after buying an additional 2,383 shares during the period. IFM Investors Pty Ltd increased its holdings in Microsoft by 20.8% in the 1st quarter. IFM Investors Pty Ltd now owns 1,138,469 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $351,001,000 after buying an additional 196,338 shares during the period. Altus Wealth Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.2% in the 1st quarter. Altus Wealth Group LLC now owns 12,712 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,919,000 after purchasing an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. Powell Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 16.2% in the 1st quarter. Powell Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,578 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $795,000 after purchasing an additional 359 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 8.2% in the 1st quarter. Onyx Bridge Wealth Group LLC now owns 6,782 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,921,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares in the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $280.00 to $322.00 in a research note on Monday, April 24th. Credit Suisse Group lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $285.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. 888 reiterated a “maintains” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $316.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of Microsoft from $295.00 to $337.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $323.28.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the 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 transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly 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 this hyperlink. In other news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 1,000 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 116,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,687,699.84. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $310.05, for a total value of $1,550,250.00. Following the sale, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 110,206 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,169,370.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 45,767 shares of company stock worth $13,735,181 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of MSFT opened at $308.97 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.88, a current ratio of 1.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $284.73 and its 200-day moving average price is $258.41. The stock has a market cap of $2.30 trillion, a PE ratio of 33.47, a P/E/G ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.93. Microsoft Co. has a twelve month low of $213.43 and a twelve month high of $313.00.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. The company had revenue of $52.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $51.01 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.25% and a return on equity of 38.98%. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.22 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 9.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be given a dividend of $0.68 per share. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 29.47%.

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.