Banque Transatlantique SA Takes $536.20 Million Position in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Banque Transatlantique SA bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 1,272,124 shares of the software giant's stock, valued at approximately $536,200,000. Microsoft makes up about 12.6% of Banque Transatlantique SA's holdings, making the stock its biggest holding.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of MSFT. WFA Asset Management Corp raised its position in shares of Microsoft by 27.0% during the 1st 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 stake in Microsoft by 0.3% in the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $5,658,000 after acquiring 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 valued at $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares in the last quarter. Global Wealth Strategies & Associates raised its position in Microsoft by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Global Wealth Strategies & Associates now owns 3,143 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $1,325,000 after purchasing an additional 146 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Trust Co of the South lifted its stake in Microsoft by 27.2% during the fourth quarter. Trust Co of the South now owns 19,411 shares of the software giant's stock worth $8,182,000 after purchasing an additional 4,147 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. DA Davidson increased their price objective on Microsoft from $450.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Tigress Financial increased their price target on shares of Microsoft from $550.00 to $595.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Guggenheim restated a "neutral" rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Scotiabank upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $470.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a "sector outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Microsoft from $510.00 to $480.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $515.68.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.9%

Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT traded up $4.18 on Monday, hitting $479.14. The company had a trading volume of 15,536,581 shares, compared to its average volume of 21,515,256. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $428.05 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $418.55. The company has a quick ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 1.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.56 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.03. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $480.64.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The software giant reported $3.46 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.24. The company had revenue of $70.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $68.54 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 33.36% and a net margin of 35.43%. The firm's revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.94 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Microsoft Co. 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 given a dividend of $0.83 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. This represents a $3.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.69%. Microsoft's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 25.66%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Amy Coleman sold 13,243 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $452.01, for a total transaction of $5,985,968.43. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 43,100 shares in the company, valued at $19,481,631. This trade represents a 23.50% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 75,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $436.05, for a total value of $32,703,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 476,999 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $207,995,413.95. This represents a 13.59% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 135,743 shares of company stock valued at $60,224,683 over the last quarter. Corporate 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.