Value Star Asset Management Hong Kong Ltd Has $46.96 Million Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Value Star Asset Management Hong Kong Ltd lifted its position in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 162.3% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 162,901 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 100,800 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 18.4% of Value Star Asset Management Hong Kong Ltd’s investment portfolio, making the stock its largest position. Value Star Asset Management Hong Kong Ltd’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $46,964,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. McIlrath & Eck LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 29.6% during the 1st quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 124,604 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,923,000 after purchasing an additional 28,442 shares in the last quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 3.7% during the 1st quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. now owns 1,178,390 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $339,629,000 after purchasing an additional 42,154 shares in the last quarter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 5.0% during the 1st quarter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC now owns 24,237 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $6,987,000 after purchasing an additional 1,156 shares in the last quarter. First Business Financial Services Inc. lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. First Business Financial Services Inc. now owns 14,374 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $4,144,000 after purchasing an additional 281 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charter Research & Investment Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 201.5% during the 1st quarter. Charter Research & Investment Group Inc. now owns 6,439 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,856,000 after purchasing an additional 4,303 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 69.20% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Microsoft from $335.00 to $415.00 in a report on Thursday, July 6th. UBS Group raised Microsoft from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $345.00 to $400.00 in a report on Friday, July 14th. TD Cowen raised their price target on Microsoft from $330.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 19th. Tigress Financial raised their price target on Microsoft from $411.00 to $433.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, Redburn Partners lowered their price target on Microsoft from $450.00 to $440.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and thirty-three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $373.68.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $328.66 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.44 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.42 and a beta of 0.90. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $366.78. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $332.77 and its 200-day moving average price is $308.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 1.77.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 25th. The software giant reported $2.69 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.55 by $0.14. The firm had revenue of $56.19 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $55.49 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 38.70% and a net margin of 34.15%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 8.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.23 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. will post 10.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 17th will be paid a $0.68 dividend. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.83%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 16th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 28.07%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 50,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.20, for a total value of $16,860,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 588,084 shares in the company, valued at approximately $198,301,924.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.