Summit Trail Advisors LLC Raises Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Summit Trail Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 69.3% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 116,557 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 47,703 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises approximately 1.4% of Summit Trail Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 12th biggest holding. Summit Trail Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $52,095,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Microsoft by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 667,987,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $281,035,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,078,099 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,571,070 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,160,020,000 after acquiring an additional 842,884 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Microsoft by 6.9% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 24,091,789 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $10,768,771,000 after purchasing an additional 1,563,533 shares during the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 14,738,956 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $6,587,576,000 after purchasing an additional 45,220 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its stake in Microsoft by 2.7% during the second quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 13,640,068 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $6,096,428,000 after purchasing an additional 360,171 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on MSFT. Wells Fargo & Company restated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, October 18th. Truist Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $600.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, October 28th. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Microsoft from $490.00 to $505.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $470.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Tuesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twenty-six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $503.03.

Microsoft Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $425.43 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a 1-year low of $360.36 and a 1-year high of $468.35. The company has a market cap of $3.16 trillion, a PE ratio of 35.10, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The company has a 50-day moving average of $420.74 and a two-hundred day moving average of $424.80.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The software giant reported $3.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.20. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.61% and a return on equity of 34.56%. The company had revenue of $65.59 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $64.57 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.99 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 16.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Microsoft Co. will post 12.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.78%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 27.39%.

Microsoft declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Monday, September 16th that permits the company to buyback $60.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the software giant to reacquire up to 1.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, CFO Amy Hood sold 38,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.55, for a total transaction of $15,600,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 496,369 shares in the company, valued at $203,784,292.95. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, CFO Amy Hood sold 38,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $410.55, for a total transaction of $15,600,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 496,369 shares in the company, valued at $203,784,292.95. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 14,398 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $417.41, for a total transaction of $6,009,869.18. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 786,933 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $328,473,703.53. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 190,629 shares of company stock worth $77,916,485 in the last quarter. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Microsoft 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.