Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Sold by Aberdeen Group plc

Key Points

• Aberdeen Group plc trimmed its Microsoft stake by 1.4%, selling 125,427 shares and now holds 8,560,474 shares (about 0.12% of Microsoft) valued at roughly $4.14 billion, making MSFT its second‑largest holding.
• Several large institutions added to positions — Vanguard, State Street and Geode increased stakes, Northern Trust bought an additional 11,600,470 shares and Norges Bank opened a sizable new position — leaving 71.13% of MSFT owned by institutional investors.
• Analysts maintain a Moderate Buy consensus with a $580.87 average price target; Microsoft also beat quarterly EPS estimates and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.91 per share.

Aberdeen Group plc lowered its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,560,474 shares of the software giant's stock after selling 125,427 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up approximately 6.4% of Aberdeen Group plc's holdings, making the stock its 2nd biggest holding. Aberdeen Group plc owned approximately 0.12% of Microsoft worth $4,140,016,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 691,386,214 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $259,539,471,000 after buying an additional 7,314,509 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 299,196,519 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $148,823,341,000 after buying an additional 3,166,275 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 179,001,751 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $88,714,256,000 after buying an additional 3,532,054 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the second quarter valued at $50,493,678,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 16.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $35,316,535,000 after buying an additional 11,600,470 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Melius Research set a $430.00 target price on Microsoft in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Morgan Stanley reissued an "overweight" rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a "hold" rating and issued a $392.00 target price (down from $540.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, February 5th. DA Davidson reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $650.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $641.00 target price (down from $645.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $580.87.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein’s Mark Moerdler says MSFT may be “bottoming” and is a good entry as AI/capex investments should start to pay off; that bullish analyst framing is supporting investor confidence. Why one analyst believes Microsoft's stock may be bottoming out
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft confirmed a $10 billion AI infrastructure expansion in Japan — a large, explicit capex commitment that underpins future Azure capacity and revenue potential in Asia. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Affirms $10B AI Infrastructure Expansion in Japan
• Positive Sentiment: MSFT will rent 30,000 Nvidia chips from Nscale (Norway) — an operational step to increase AI compute capacity quickly without owning all hardware, easing near-term deployment bottlenecks. Microsoft will rent 30,000 Nvidia chips from Nscale in Norway deal; expands Wyoming ops
• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft is buying 3,200 acres in Wyoming for a new data‑center campus — another concrete sign it’s expanding physical cloud capacity to capture backlog demand for Azure/AI services. Microsoft’s (MSFT) Data Center Push Continues with New 3,200 Acre Wyoming Campus
• Neutral Sentiment: Flow of bullish media/analyst coverage and heavy call‑option activity suggest short-term momentum (investors positioning for a rebound), but these are sentiment signals rather than fundamental proofs. Microsoft (MSFT) Outperforms Broader Market: What You Need to Know
• Negative Sentiment: Competition/partnership risk: Anthropic is targeting Microsoft’s most popular app, and OpenAI’s internal pressure to expand beyond Microsoft (including ties to Amazon) raises the prospect of reduced exclusivity and slower AI revenue leverage. These rival moves create execution and moat risk. Anthropic quietly targets Microsoft’s most popular app
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst/pricing pressure: Several firms have trimmed price targets (and some memos allege OpenAI constraints tied to Microsoft), keeping a cloud of uncertainty around valuation despite strong revenue growth. That keeps downside risk if capex squeezes margins longer than expected. Mizuho Trims Microsoft Price Target to $515: How Much Upside Is Left in This AI Titan?

Microsoft Price Performance

MSFT opened at $393.04 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $390.96 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $455.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 1.39. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $355.67 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.92 trillion, a PE ratio of 24.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The software giant reported $4.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.86 by $0.28. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.04% and a return on equity of 32.34%. The firm had revenue of $81.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $80.28 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.23 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was up 16.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. 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%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Microsoft news, Director John W. Stanton bought 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $397.35 per share, with a total value 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. The trade was a 6.34% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 12,321 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $409.52, for a total transaction of $5,045,695.92. Following 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 position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Microsoft 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).

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MSFT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report).

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.