First Merchants Corp Decreases Stock Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

First Merchants Corp lowered its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 2.8% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 102,568 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 2,930 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for 2.0% of First Merchants Corp’s portfolio, making the stock its 8th largest position. First Merchants Corp’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $53,125,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 2.0% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 705,077,786 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $350,712,742,000 after acquiring an additional 13,691,572 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Microsoft by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $148,823,341,000 after purchasing an additional 3,166,275 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $88,714,256,000 after purchasing an additional 3,532,054 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,493,678,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $639.00 to $590.00 in a research note on Thursday. Rothschild Redb lowered Microsoft from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 18th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. Wall Street Zen downgraded Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Sunday, January 18th. Finally, Raymond James Financial reduced their target price on Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $618.18.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 129,349 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,577,620.48. This represents a 8.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total value of $1,364,352.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. The trade was a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about 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 Price Performance

Shares of MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $478.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $501.21. Microsoft Corporation has a 52-week low of $344.79 and a 52-week high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.40. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a PE ratio of 33.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.07.

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

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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

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).