Phillips Financial Management LLC Purchases 2,551 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Phillips Financial Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 39.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 9,013 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,551 shares during the period. Phillips Financial Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $4,668,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. AlphaQuest LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 342 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $170,000 after buying an additional 19 shares in the last quarter. Seek First Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter. Seek First Inc. now owns 1,358 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $675,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Level Financial Advisors grew its position in Microsoft by 0.8% in the second quarter. Level Financial Advisors now owns 2,680 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,333,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares in the last quarter. Red Mountain Financial LLC grew its position in Microsoft by 0.7% in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Onyx Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Onyx Financial Advisors LLC now owns 7,108 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,536,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting 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

Microsoft Stock Down 0.7%

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $430.29 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $475.83 and its 200 day moving average is $499.71. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $344.79 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. 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.

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

Microsoft Announces Dividend

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 given a dividend of $0.91 per share. 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 22.76%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Wolfe Research cut their price objective on Microsoft from $625.00 to $530.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Microsoft from $625.00 to $575.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $590.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday. Finally, DZ Bank reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $597.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,703,959.04. This trade represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 12,750 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $491.52, for a total transaction of $6,266,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 129,349 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,577,620.48. This trade represents a 8.97% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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).