Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Acquired by E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd.

E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd. raised its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 536.4% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 12,511 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 10,545 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for 3.9% of E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd.’s holdings, making the stock its 6th largest holding. E Fund Management Hong Kong Co. Ltd.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $6,480,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position 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 purchasing an additional 13,691,572 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $148,823,341,000 after buying an additional 3,166,275 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in 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 buying an additional 3,532,054 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,493,678,000. Finally, Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC grew its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Headlines 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 Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently issued reports on MSFT. Stifel Nicolaus set a $640.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $650.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Evercore ISI set a $640.00 target price on Microsoft in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Mizuho decreased their price target on Microsoft from $640.00 to $620.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Daiwa Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Microsoft from $640.00 to $630.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $618.18.

Microsoft Stock Up 3.3%

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $465.95 on Monday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $478.69 and its 200 day moving average is $501.19. Microsoft Corporation has a one year low of $344.79 and a one year high of $555.45. The firm has a market cap of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.14, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 1.39.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued 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. The business had revenue of $77.67 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $75.49 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.45% and a net margin of 35.71%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.30 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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 given a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 25.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Microsoft news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 461,597 shares in the company, 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 document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 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 sale, the executive vice president directly owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 54,100 shares of company stock valued at $27,598,872 over the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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).