Cardinal Capital Management Inc. Has $26.70 Million Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Key Points

• Cardinal Capital Management boosted its Microsoft stake by 5,837.3% in Q4, buying 54,287 shares to end the period with 55,217 shares worth about $26.70 million.
• Microsoft faces mixed catalysts: positive demand signals like Accenture rolling out Copilot to ~743,000 employees and a disclosed purchase by Michael Burry, but negative developments including a rewritten Microsoft–OpenAI deal that reduces Azure exclusivity and ongoing regulatory/legal noise; analysts have trimmed near‑term targets while maintaining a consensus average price target of $570 (Moderate Buy).

Cardinal Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) by 5,837.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 55,217 shares of the software giant's stock after purchasing an additional 54,287 shares during the period. Cardinal Capital Management Inc.'s holdings in Microsoft were worth $26,704,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of MSFT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth about $50,493,678,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Microsoft in the 1st quarter worth about $18,733,827,000. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 500.0% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 59,543,261 shares of the software giant's stock worth $30,840,432,000 after purchasing an additional 49,618,571 shares in the last quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 49,640.3% in the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant's stock worth $14,905,904,000 after purchasing an additional 29,906,791 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in Microsoft by 16.1% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant's stock worth $35,316,535,000 after purchasing an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company's stock.

Microsoft News Roundup

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)

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on MSFT. Evercore decreased their price target on Microsoft from $640.00 to $580.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wolfe Research decreased their price target on Microsoft from $625.00 to $530.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price target on Microsoft from $540.00 to $500.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $641.00 price target (down from $645.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Phillip Securities raised Microsoft from a "moderate buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Sunday, February 1st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-eight have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $570.00.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.0%

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $424.82 on Tuesday. Microsoft Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $356.28 and a fifty-two week high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 1.39. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $393.95 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $449.40. The company has a market cap of $3.15 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.57, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.34% and a net margin of 39.04%.The firm had revenue of $81.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.23 earnings per share. The company's revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.54 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 21st. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. Microsoft's dividend payout ratio is presently 22.76%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft

In other Microsoft news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $409.52, for a total value of $5,045,695.92. Following the transaction, the executive vice president 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. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director John W. Stanton purchased 5,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $397.35 per share, for a total transaction of $1,986,750.00. Following the acquisition, the director owned 83,905 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $33,339,651.75. This represents a 6.34% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Microsoft Company 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).

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