Croban Buys Shares of 3,541 Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Croban bought a new position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 3,541 shares of the software giant's stock, valued at approximately $1,329,000. Microsoft makes up about 1.2% of Croban's investment portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest holding.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Seamount Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Microsoft by 6.2% during the first quarter. Seamount Financial Group Inc. now owns 6,120 shares of the software giant's stock worth $2,298,000 after purchasing an additional 355 shares during the period. Clarity Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in Microsoft by 0.6% during the first quarter. Clarity Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 10,080 shares of the software giant's stock worth $3,784,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the period. Genus Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Microsoft by 194.1% during the first quarter. Genus Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,406 shares of the software giant's stock worth $1,279,000 after purchasing an additional 7,025 shares during the period. Ramsay Stattman Vela & Price Inc. grew its stake in Microsoft by 0.4% during the first quarter. Ramsay Stattman Vela & Price Inc. now owns 112,300 shares of the software giant's stock worth $42,156,000 after purchasing an additional 444 shares during the period. Finally, Joseph Group Capital Management grew its stake in Microsoft by 18.9% during the first quarter. Joseph Group Capital Management now owns 12,549 shares of the software giant's stock worth $4,711,000 after purchasing an additional 1,996 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on MSFT. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Microsoft from $550.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Microsoft from $465.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Wedbush raised their price objective on Microsoft from $600.00 to $625.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Scotiabank raised their price objective on Microsoft from $500.00 to $650.00 and gave the company a "sector outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on Microsoft from $605.00 to $613.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $612.54.

Microsoft Stock Down 0.6%

Shares of MSFT stock traded down $2.95 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $506.69. The company had a trading volume of 20,949,937 shares, compared to its average volume of 21,697,436. Microsoft Corporation has a 12 month low of $344.79 and a 12 month high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.35 and a quick ratio of 1.35. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $508.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $446.67. The company has a market cap of $3.77 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.06.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.35 by $0.30. The business had revenue of $76.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $73.79 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.44% and a net margin of 36.15%.Microsoft's quarterly revenue was up 18.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.95 earnings per share. Microsoft has set its Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.83 per share. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. Microsoft's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.34%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $527.32, for a total transaction of $2,557,502.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 39,111 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,624,012.52. This trade represents a 11.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company's stock.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.