Spartan Planning & Wealth Management Purchases New Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Spartan Planning & Wealth Management purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 15,152 shares of the software giant’s stock, valued at approximately $7,537,000. Microsoft comprises approximately 6.5% of Spartan Planning & Wealth Management’s holdings, making the stock its 4th largest position.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of MSFT. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $45,040,162,000 after acquiring an additional 90,533,328 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Microsoft in the first quarter worth $18,733,827,000. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 40,290.4% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 46,695,303 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $17,528,950,000 after buying an additional 46,579,693 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 16.1% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,316,535,000 after buying an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Microsoft by 1.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 691,386,214 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $259,539,471,000 after purchasing an additional 7,314,509 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on Microsoft from $600.00 to $675.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $600.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Microsoft from $650.00 to $675.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, October 11th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Microsoft from $500.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. One 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 company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $618.47.

Microsoft Stock Down 0.4%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $511.61 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.35. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $511.99 and a 200 day moving average price of $474.73. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.80 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.51, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.03. Microsoft Corporation has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $555.45.

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

Microsoft Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 20th. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.83. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.34%.

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.