Kathmere Capital Management LLC Increases Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Kathmere Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 8.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 35,196 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,609 shares during the period. Microsoft comprises approximately 1.3% of Kathmere Capital Management LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 20th largest position. Kathmere Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $18,230,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 51.3% during the 2nd quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares in the last quarter. Westend Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 386.7% in the second quarter. Westend Capital Management LLC now owns 73 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth approximately $44,000. University of Illinois Foundation purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,000. Finally, ROSS JOHNSON & Associates LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 155.7% in the 1st quarter. ROSS JOHNSON & Associates LLC now owns 156 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $59,000 after buying an additional 95 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% 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.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on MSFT shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Microsoft to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 12th. Rothschild & Co Redburn cut their target price on Microsoft from $500.00 to $450.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Redburn Partners set a $450.00 price target on Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $690.00 to $660.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Three equities 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $618.18.

Microsoft Trading Up 3.3%

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $465.95 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The business’s 50 day moving average is $478.69 and its two-hundred day moving average is $501.18. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total transaction of $6,266,880.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. The trade was a 8.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total value of $19,967,640.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $239,402,668.08. This trade represents a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872 over the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Microsoft

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).