Motiv8 Investments LLC Grows Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Motiv8 Investments LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 38.0% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,911 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 802 shares during the quarter. Motiv8 Investments LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,227,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its position in Microsoft by 34,643.3% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,837,278 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $7,096,913,000 after purchasing an additional 16,788,816 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 76.6% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 10,532,402 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $4,439,407,000 after buying an additional 4,568,539 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 165,024,812 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $70,790,682,000 after buying an additional 3,264,648 shares during the period. Baillie Gifford & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 46.1% in the 3rd quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co. now owns 7,048,244 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,032,859,000 after acquiring an additional 2,222,483 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 4.1% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 54,590,791 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $23,490,417,000 after acquiring an additional 2,125,030 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on MSFT. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on Microsoft from $450.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Scotiabank raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $470.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $475.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, TD Securities raised their target price on Microsoft from $475.00 to $490.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $507.77.

Microsoft Trading Up 2.3 %

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $435.28 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $384.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $411.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The stock has a market cap of $3.24 trillion, a P/E ratio of 35.05, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.00. Microsoft Co. has a 12 month low of $344.79 and a 12 month high of $468.35.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.22 by $0.24. The business had revenue of $70.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $68.54 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.43% and a return on equity of 33.36%. Microsoft’s revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.94 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 15th will be given a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 15th. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.73%.

About Microsoft

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.