Avity Investment Management Inc. Sells 3,144 Shares of Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Avity Investment Management Inc. cut its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 126,015 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 3,144 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for about 4.6% of Avity Investment Management Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd biggest holding. Avity Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $65,270,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. WFA Asset Management Corp grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after buying an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. increased its holdings in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $5,658,000 after buying an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC raised its position in Microsoft by 410.4% during the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $1,144,000 after acquiring an additional 2,138 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. lifted its stake in Microsoft by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other news, Director John W. Stanton purchased 5,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $397.35 per share, for a total transaction of $1,986,750.00. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 83,905 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,339,651.75. This trade represents a 6.34% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $409.52, for a total value of $5,045,695.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 137,933 shares in the company, valued at approximately $56,486,322.16. This represents a 8.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $399.41 on Wednesday. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $344.79 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The company has a market capitalization of $2.97 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.98, a PEG ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $424.42 and a 200 day simple moving average of $474.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 1.39.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The firm had revenue of $81.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $80.28 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, May 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 21st. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.76%.

Microsoft News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Management unifies commercial and consumer Copilot teams to create a single Copilot product roadmap and experience; Jacob Andreou will lead Copilot work while Mustafa Suleyman shifts toward model research — a move investors view as improving focus and speeding product coherence/adoption. Microsoft unifies Copilot commercial and consumer product teams in unit rejig
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft Research collaborates on a MicroLED-powered Active Optical Cable design with MediaTek to improve data‑center power efficiency — a technology that could lower operating costs for large-scale AI infrastructure over time. MediaTek Develops Active Optical Cable Technology with Microsoft Research
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft is named as a collaborator in large AI compute deployments (Nscale’s West Virginia AI campus), reinforcing demand for Azure and cloud services tied to AI GPU capacity. That supports long‑run cloud revenue upside. Nscale and Microsoft Announce Collaboration with NVIDIA and Caterpillar
• Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft reports progress on healthcare AI (MAI-DxO) with strong diagnostic results in testing; promising for long-term TAM but commercial and regulatory paths remain uncertain. Microsoft Pushes Toward ‘Medical Superintelligence’ in Healthcare
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader tech competition in quantum computing intensifies (IBM ramping hybrid quantum-classical work); Microsoft is active in quantum but the landscape remains long‑term and uncertain. The New Threat IBM’s Quantum Computing Research Poses to D-Wave
• Negative Sentiment: Security concern: reporting suggests Microsoft Intune tooling may have been used in an attack on Stryker — raises questions about enterprise security controls and could spur customer scrutiny or contract risk if such incidents scale. Microsoft Stock (NASDAQ:MSFT) Slips, Intune Tool May Have Been Used Against Stryker

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on MSFT. Phillip Securities upgraded shares of Microsoft from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Sunday, February 1st. KeyCorp cut their target price on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Mizuho reduced their price target on Microsoft from $640.00 to $620.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. UBS Group reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered Microsoft from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Sunday, January 18th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $591.95.

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).