CoreCap Advisors LLC Buys 2,394 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

CoreCap Advisors LLC increased its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 7.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 34,517 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,394 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 0.6% of CoreCap Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 20th largest holding. CoreCap Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $17,878,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $45,040,162,000 after purchasing an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of Microsoft in the first quarter worth about $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 49,640.3% during the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $14,905,904,000 after purchasing an additional 29,906,791 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 705,077,786 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $350,712,742,000 after purchasing an additional 13,691,572 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value of $6,266,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. The trade was a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: New AI and robotics announcements — Microsoft unveiled robotics/agentic AI initiatives and pushed further into agentic AI for retail and frontline use, boosting enthusiasm that its product roadmap will translate into revenue from AI workloads. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Defense cloud contract — Microsoft won a sizable Air Force Cloud One task order (~$170M) that validates Azure’s position in government/defense spending and provides a tangible near‑term revenue win. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Investor reassessment of valuation — After recent weakness MSFT is seeing a rebound as analysts and market commentators highlight Microsoft’s relative growth, profitability and balance‑sheet strength versus software peers. That sentiment helped the stock move back up today. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst reaffirmations and mixed targets — Several firms (Jefferies, Guggenheim, UBS) kept Buy ratings even as many groups trimmed price targets; that leaves a mix of support and pressure in the tape heading into earnings. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple price‑target cuts and downgrades — A wave of target trims (Cantor Fitzgerald, Wells Fargo adjustments, Rothschild/Redburn cuts and other downgrades) is adding selling pressure and keeps expectations muted into the Jan. 28 earnings print. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Service outages and security/privacy headlines — Recent widespread Microsoft 365/Outlook outages disrupted customers and raised reliability concerns; separate reports about providing BitLocker recovery keys to the FBI introduce potential reputational/privacy scrutiny. Read More.

Microsoft Stock Up 3.3%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. Microsoft Corporation has a 12-month low of $344.79 and a 12-month high of $555.45. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $478.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $501.18. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The company has a market cap of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.65 by $0.48. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.71% and a return on equity of 32.45%. The company had revenue of $77.67 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $75.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.30 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is currently 25.89%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, November 19th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $625.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $665.00 to $630.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. BNP Paribas Exane upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $632.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 3rd. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Microsoft from $690.00 to $660.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $618.18.

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).