Legal & General Group Plc Has $21.60 Billion Stock Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Legal & General Group Plc cut its stake in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 21.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 51,250,135 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 14,385,041 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up about 5.7% of Legal & General Group Plc’s portfolio, making the stock its 3rd biggest holding. Legal & General Group Plc owned approximately 0.69% of Microsoft worth $21,601,932,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 4th quarter worth $44,343,058,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 684,071,705 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $288,336,224,000 after buying an additional 10,431,988 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 76.6% in 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 period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 168,128,024 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $70,720,874,000 after buying an additional 3,103,212 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on MSFT. KeyCorp restated a “sector weight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on Microsoft from $550.00 to $595.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Wall Street Zen raised Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $525.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, May 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $513.89.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $478.87 on Friday. Microsoft Co. has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $480.42. The business’s fifty day moving average is $425.64 and its 200 day moving average is $418.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a current ratio of 1.35. The firm has a market cap of $3.56 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.56, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.03.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.24. Microsoft had a return on equity of 33.36% and a net margin of 35.43%. The business had revenue of $70.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $68.54 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.94 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 21st will be issued a $0.83 dividend. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 25.66%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $460.01, for a total transaction of $460,010.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 47,058 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,647,150.58. This represents a 2.08% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 6,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $433.17, for a total value of $2,599,020.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 471,036 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $204,038,664.12. The trade was a 1.26% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 135,743 shares of company stock worth $60,224,683. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.