Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD Has $7.01 Million Stock Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD reduced its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 13.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 13,543 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 2,147 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for 2.4% of Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD’s holdings, making the stock its 15th biggest holding. Fairfield Financial Advisors LTD’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $7,014,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at about $50,493,678,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the first quarter worth approximately $18,733,827,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% during 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. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in Microsoft by 16.1% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $35,316,535,000 after buying an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance

Microsoft stock opened at $430.29 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $475.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $499.71. Microsoft Corporation has a 12 month low of $344.79 and a 12 month high of $555.45. The company has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.91, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.34% and a net margin of 39.04%.The firm had revenue of $81.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 19th will be paid a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.76%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSFT has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus set a $540.00 price objective on Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. Raymond James Financial dropped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $600.00 price target (down from $610.00) on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $650.00 to $600.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their target price on Microsoft from $630.00 to $575.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $597.73.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the business’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 owned 461,597 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $239,402,668.08. The trade was a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, 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 quarter. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Large commercial deals and partnerships underpin continued demand — Microsoft landed a major cloud customer agreement (Perplexity, reported as a $750M deal), which demonstrates Azure can win sizable AI workloads and supports future revenue. Perplexity signs $750 million AI cloud deal with Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: Long-term AI opportunity remains large — analysts and commentators note that potential liquidity events (e.g., an OpenAI IPO) and continued hyperscaler AI demand could boost infrastructure spending that benefits Microsoft’s cloud and services over time. Could A $1 Trillion OpenAI IPO Save The Day For Nvidia, Microsoft?
• Positive Sentiment: Backlog/RPO growth signals demand — Microsoft’s commercial remaining performance obligations (backlog) jumped materially year-over-year, implying multi-year contracted revenue tied to AI workloads. Microsoft demand backlog doubles to $625 billion
• Neutral Sentiment: Quarterly results were solid but mixed — MSFT beat on revenue and EPS (Q2 results) yet the company issued guidance and commentary that implied a modest moderation in Azure growth vs. prior quarter; the market is parsing growth vs. the cost profile. Microsoft Q2 earnings beat on top and bottom lines
• Neutral Sentiment: Options and sentiment flows amplify moves — unusually high call-option buying and heavy volume have increased intraday volatility and may accentuate both selloffs and snapbacks. Stock Of The Day: Is This The Bottom For Microsoft?
• Negative Sentiment: Investor backlash to capex and margin risk — the core negative: investors punished MSFT because AI capex jumped (reported ~$37.5B in the quarter) while Azure growth showed signs of slowing, raising doubts about near-term returns. That drove a sharp selloff and a big market-cap contraction. Microsoft tumbled 10% in a day and isn’t recovering premarket. Here’s why
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst cuts & guidance uncertainty — several firms trimmed price targets or flagged near-term Azure/margin risks, increasing downside pressure even as many maintain buy ratings longer term. These Analysts Slash Their Forecasts On Microsoft Following Q2 Results
• Negative Sentiment: Legal/investor scrutiny follows the shock drop — law firms have opened investigations and class-action notices have surfaced, which can keep sentiment fragile near-term. Microsoft Corporation Investigated on Behalf of Investors

Microsoft 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).