Cramer Rosenthal Mcglynn LLC Increases Stock Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Cramer Rosenthal Mcglynn LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) by 23.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 22,317 shares of the software giant's stock after purchasing an additional 4,204 shares during the quarter. Cramer Rosenthal Mcglynn LLC's holdings in Microsoft were worth $9,407,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Microsoft during the 4th quarter worth approximately $44,343,058,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC lifted its position in Microsoft by 34,643.3% during the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,837,278 shares of the software giant's stock worth $7,096,913,000 after acquiring an additional 16,788,816 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Microsoft by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 684,071,705 shares of the software giant's stock worth $288,336,224,000 after acquiring an additional 10,431,988 shares in the last quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. lifted its position in Microsoft by 471.4% during the 4th quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 5,812,933 shares of the software giant's stock worth $2,366,153,000 after acquiring an additional 4,795,536 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its position in Microsoft by 76.6% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 10,532,402 shares of the software giant's stock worth $4,439,407,000 after acquiring an additional 4,568,539 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on MSFT shares. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Microsoft from $475.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Microsoft from $515.00 to $565.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday. Needham & Company LLC restated a "buy" rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price target on Microsoft from $502.00 to $512.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-nine have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $515.68.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 6,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $433.17, for a total value of $2,599,020.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 471,036 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $204,038,664.12. This trade represents a 1.26% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 1,000 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $460.01, for a total value of $460,010.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 47,058 shares in the company, valued at $21,647,150.58. This represents a 2.08% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 135,743 shares of company stock worth $60,224,683 over the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.8%

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $474.96 on Friday. 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 cap of $3.53 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.03. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $428.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $418.65. Microsoft Co. has a fifty-two week low of $344.79 and a fifty-two week high of $480.42.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 business had revenue of $70.07 billion during 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 company's revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.94 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 13.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 21st will be issued a $0.83 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 21st. This represents a $3.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.70%. Microsoft's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 25.66%.

Microsoft Profile

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.

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