Skylands Capital LLC Increases Position in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT

Key Points

• Skylands Capital LLC sharply increased its Microsoft stake in Q1, boosting holdings by 1,629.5% to 11,155 shares worth about $4.13 million.
• Microsoft continues to draw bullish analyst support, with most recent coverage maintaining Buy or Outperform ratings and a consensus price target around $560.98, even after recent share weakness.
• The company faces mixed headlines: it reported strong quarterly results and raised AI efficiency efforts, but it also announced about 4,800 layoffs and is dealing with renewed legal and Xbox business concerns.

Skylands Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT - Free Report) by 1,629.5% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 11,155 shares of the software giant's stock after purchasing an additional 10,510 shares during the period. Skylands Capital LLC's holdings in Microsoft were worth $4,129,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. WFA Asset Management Corp lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 27.0% during the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant's stock worth $427,000 after buying an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 12,658 shares of the software giant's stock worth $5,658,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant's stock worth $1,144,000 after purchasing an additional 2,138 shares during the period. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its stake in Microsoft by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $1,000,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $9,735,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company's stock.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Microsoft is getting credit for shifting more AI workloads to its own in-house models, which could lower costs and improve margins in products like Excel and Outlook. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Several analysts remain bullish, arguing Microsoft’s Azure growth and AI infrastructure spending support the long-term thesis and could leave the shares undervalued after recent weakness. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: DA Davidson reiterated a Buy rating and a $550 price target, signaling Wall Street still sees meaningful upside despite near-term turbulence. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Commentary around Microsoft’s AI business remains constructive, with reports highlighting a large-scale AI revenue base and continued investor interest in the stock as an AI leader. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Microsoft announced about 4,800 layoffs, including roughly 3,200 roles tied to Xbox, as part of a broader reset of the gaming business and a cost-cutting restructuring. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple reports say the Xbox division is underperforming, with weak margins and subscription results raising concerns that management is having to shrink a core consumer business. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Microsoft also faces fresh securities-fraud class-action pressure tied to Copilot and Azure disclosures, adding legal overhang and headline risk for investors. Article Title

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the stock. TD Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $540.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, June 4th. President Capital raised their target price on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $520.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, April 30th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, April 24th. BNP Paribas Exane dropped their price target on Microsoft from $556.00 to $555.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Wolfe Research reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $570.00 to $525.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Forty research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $560.98.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,500 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $402.84, for a total value of $1,812,780.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 47,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,122,009.12. The trade was a 8.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 15,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.99, for a total value of $7,145,345.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 110,477 shares in the company, valued at $50,928,792.23. This represents a 12.30% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 23,762 shares of company stock worth $10,508,361. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company's stock.

Microsoft Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $388.84 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $404.84 and a 200-day simple moving average of $416.21. The firm has a market cap of $2.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.13. Microsoft Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $349.20 and a fifty-two week high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The software giant reported $4.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $4.06 by $0.21. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.34% and a return on equity of 31.94%. The company had revenue of $82.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $81.44 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.46 EPS. Microsoft's revenue was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.91 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 20th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. Microsoft's dividend payout ratio is currently 21.67%.

About Microsoft

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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