Microsoft’s (MSFT) Outperform Rating Reaffirmed at Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer restated their outperform rating on shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in a research report released on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Oppenheimer currently has a $515.00 price target on the software giant’s stock, down from their previous price target of $630.00.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Mizuho decreased their target price on Microsoft from $620.00 to $515.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Evercore reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $640.00 to $580.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Melius Research set a $430.00 price objective on Microsoft in a report on Monday, February 9th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Microsoft from $600.00 to $500.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $570.00.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.0%

NASDAQ MSFT opened at $424.82 on Monday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $393.95 and its 200 day moving average price is $449.40. Microsoft has a 12 month low of $356.28 and a 12 month high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.38. The company has a market capitalization of $3.15 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.86 by $0.28. The firm 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%. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.23 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Microsoft will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 21st will be issued a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 21st. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 22.76%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, Director John W. Stanton bought 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $397.35 per share, with a total value of $1,986,750.00. Following the purchase, the director owned 83,905 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,339,651.75. This represents a 6.34% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the executive vice president directly owned 137,933 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $56,486,322.16. This represents a 8.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Microsoft

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Lafayette Investments Inc. lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Lafayette Investments Inc. now owns 36,807 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $13,625,000 after acquiring an additional 228 shares during the period. Hendershot Investments Inc. increased its stake in Microsoft by 10.5% in the 1st quarter. Hendershot Investments Inc. now owns 71,058 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $26,303,000 after purchasing an additional 6,767 shares in the last quarter. Burford Brothers Inc. raised its holdings in Microsoft by 1.3% during the first quarter. Burford Brothers Inc. now owns 20,227 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $7,488,000 after purchasing an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Arcadia Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Microsoft by 9.2% during the first quarter. Arcadia Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,585 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $587,000 after purchasing an additional 134 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Financial Group Inc. Co. ADV grew its holdings in Microsoft by 10.3% in the first quarter. Capital Financial Group Inc. Co. ADV now owns 1,496 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $554,000 after purchasing an additional 140 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Accenture will deploy Microsoft Copilot to ~743,000 employees, a large enterprise adoption that should boost Microsoft 365/Commercial monetization and validate Copilot demand. Accenture to roll out Copilot to all 743,000 employees in boost for Microsoft
• Positive Sentiment: Notable value investor Michael Burry disclosed a new MSFT purchase, a signal some traders view as a contrarian endorsement after recent weakness. Michael Burry Just Bought Microsoft. It’s a Genius Move Worth Following
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts remain broadly constructive but are trimming targets and recalibrating near-term expectations ahead of earnings — Oppenheimer reaffirmed Outperform but cut its PT; Cantor Fitzgerald trimmed its target too. That keeps long‑term thesis intact but raises short‑term uncertainty. Oppenheimer Outperform, PT Cut (Benzinga)
• Neutral Sentiment: Market commentary and previews (Jefferies, Evercore, others) flag Q3 earnings as pivotal — strong cloud and AI numbers could reignite the rally, so near-term price action will hinge on Wednesday’s print. Microsoft Q3 preview: Jefferies says it’s time to reset the narrative
• Negative Sentiment: Microsoft and OpenAI rewrote their deal: Microsoft’s exclusive license ends, OpenAI can sell products on AWS/Google Cloud, and Microsoft will stop traditional revenue sharing — a change that reduces Azure’s exclusivity moat and spurred an immediate share pullback as investors price higher cloud competition. Microsoft and OpenAI gut their exclusive deal, freeing OpenAI to sell on AWS and Google Cloud
• Negative Sentiment: Operational and regulatory noise: an Outlook.com sign‑in outage and a new UK antitrust lawsuit from Slack over Teams bundling add execution and legal risk that could weigh on near‑term sentiment. Microsoft says Outlook.com outage is causing sign‑in failures – BleepingComputer Microsoft facing UK antitrust lawsuit from Slack over Teams ‘bundling’ (Reuters)

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).