Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Stock Price Expected to Rise, New Street Research Analyst Says

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) had its price target upped by equities research analysts at New Street Research from $670.00 to $675.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,MarketScreener reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the software giant’s stock. New Street Research’s price objective points to a potential upside of 56.87% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on MSFT. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and issued a $586.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price target on Microsoft from $630.00 to $575.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Wolfe Research dropped their price objective on Microsoft from $675.00 to $625.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, December 15th. UBS Group reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. Finally, TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $597.73.

Microsoft Stock Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $430.29 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.39. The firm has a market cap of $3.20 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.07. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $475.83 and its 200 day moving average price is $499.71. Microsoft has a 1-year low of $344.79 and a 1-year high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. The company had revenue of $81.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $80.28 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The business’s revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.23 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Microsoft will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 directly owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total value of $6,266,880.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer 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 disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Microsoft

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. AlphaQuest LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 342 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $170,000 after purchasing an additional 19 shares in the last quarter. BLVD Private Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.6% in the third quarter. BLVD Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,169 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,641,000 after buying an additional 19 shares during the last quarter. Seek First Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% during the second quarter. Seek First Inc. now owns 1,358 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $675,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the period. Level Financial Advisors lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.8% during the second quarter. Level Financial Advisors now owns 2,680 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,333,000 after buying an additional 20 shares during the period. Finally, Red Mountain Financial LLC boosted its position in Microsoft by 0.7% during the second quarter. Red Mountain Financial LLC now owns 2,761 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,373,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft

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

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).