Morling Financial Advisors LLC Acquires 230 Shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Morling Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) by 9.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,705 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 230 shares during the period. Microsoft comprises approximately 0.8% of Morling Financial Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 26th biggest position. Morling Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $649,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $147,714,197,000 after acquiring an additional 6,129,708 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $68,824,173,000 after acquiring an additional 1,951,554 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in shares of 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 valued at $50,302,677,000 after acquiring an additional 556,020 shares during the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 49,440,386 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $11,514,665,000 after acquiring an additional 208,765 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 215,103 shares during the last quarter. 69.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,081 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.54, for a total transaction of $1,588,015.74. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 94,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,481,273.12. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other Microsoft news, CMO Christopher C. Capossela sold 5,081 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $312.54, for a total transaction of $1,588,015.74. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now owns 94,328 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,481,273.12. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 4,767 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 49,848 shares of company stock valued at $15,050,877 in the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. Atlantic Securities increased their price target on Microsoft from $290.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their target price on Microsoft from $280.00 to $322.00 in a research report on Monday, April 24th. Guggenheim raised their target price on Microsoft from $212.00 to $232.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Microsoft from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Finally, Fundamental Research lowered Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and thirty-two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $323.28.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $314.00 on Thursday. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $314.43. The stock has a market cap of $2.33 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.02, a PEG ratio of 2.74 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.88 and a current ratio of 1.91. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $288.14 and its 200 day simple moving average is $260.15.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The software giant reported $2.45 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.23. Microsoft had a net margin of 33.25% and a return on equity of 38.98%. The business had revenue of $52.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $51.01 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.22 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. will post 9.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 18th will be given a $0.68 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $2.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.87%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 29.47%.

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.