McIlrath & Eck LLC Grows Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

McIlrath & Eck LLC grew its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 3.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 40,265 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,159 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up 2.2% of McIlrath & Eck LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 16th largest position. McIlrath & Eck LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $20,855,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at about $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 90,533,328 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in Microsoft during the 1st quarter worth $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 49,640.3% in the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $14,905,904,000 after purchasing an additional 29,906,791 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 13,691,572 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $465.95 on Friday. 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 firm has a 50-day moving average price of $478.69 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $501.21. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $344.79 and a twelve month high of $555.45. The company has a market capitalization of $3.46 trillion, a P/E ratio of 33.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.88 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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.65 by $0.48. The firm had revenue of $77.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $75.49 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.45% and a net margin of 35.71%.Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.30 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total value of $19,967,640.00. Following the sale, 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 in the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have commented on the company. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $625.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, December 22nd. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $586.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $665.00 to $630.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Raymond James Financial cut their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $618.18.

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).