Royal Bank Of Canada Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by stock analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada in a report issued on Friday,MarketScreener Latest Ratings reports. They presently have a $640.00 price objective on the software giant’s stock. Royal Bank Of Canada’s target price indicates a potential upside of 23.71% from the stock’s current price.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Arete raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $700.00 to $710.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $585.00 to $640.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $580.00 to $640.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $600.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Westpark Capital restated a “hold” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $617.63.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $517.35 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $512.83 and a 200 day moving average price of $467.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.85 trillion, a PE ratio of 37.93, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a quick ratio of 1.35, a current ratio of 1.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Microsoft has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.35 by $0.30. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.15% and a return on equity of 32.44%. The company had revenue of $76.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $73.79 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.95 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.1% on a year-over-year basis. Microsoft has set its Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Microsoft will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $527.32, for a total value of $2,557,502.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 39,111 shares in the company, valued at $20,624,012.52. The trade was a 11.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 149,205 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $504.78, for a total transaction of $75,315,699.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 790,852 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $399,206,272.56. This trade represents a 15.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. WFA Asset Management Corp raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after purchasing an additional 216 shares during the period. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the period. Wealth Group Ltd. raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.