Scotiabank Issues Positive Forecast for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Stock Price

Key Points

• Scotiabank raised Microsoft's price target from $500.00 to $650.00, indicating a potential upside of 22.12% from the current price.
• Microsoft reported strong earnings, with $3.65 EPS for the quarter, surpassing estimates and demonstrating a revenue growth of 18.1% year-over-year.
• Thirty analysts rated Microsoft with a buy rating, reflecting a general consensus of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $609.86.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) had its target price lifted by stock analysts at Scotiabank from $500.00 to $650.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a "sector outperform" rating on the software giant's stock. Scotiabank's target price would suggest a potential upside of 24.08% from the company's previous close.

Several other research firms also recently commented on MSFT. Wall Street Zen downgraded Microsoft from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $530.00 to $582.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday. KeyCorp raised shares of Microsoft from a "sector weight" rating to an "overweight" rating and set a $630.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday. DA Davidson boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on shares of Microsoft from $581.00 to $639.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $609.86.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Microsoft stock traded down $9.63 during trading on Thursday, hitting $523.87. The stock had a trading volume of 11,585,408 shares, compared to its average volume of 22,313,145. Microsoft has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $555.45. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The stock's 50 day moving average is $488.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $434.13. The stock has a market cap of $3.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.04.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.35 by $0.30. Microsoft had a return on equity of 33.49% and a net margin of 36.15%. The business had revenue of $76.44 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $73.79 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.95 earnings per share. Microsoft's revenue for the quarter was up 18.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Microsoft will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 3,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $463.00, for a total value of $1,389,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 43,930 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,339,590. The trade was a 6.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 6,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $433.17, for a total transaction of $2,599,020.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 471,036 shares of the company's stock, valued at $204,038,664.12. This trade represents a 1.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 60,743 shares of company stock valued at $27,520,933 in the last three months. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Microsoft

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Microsoft by 1.1% during 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 during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Microsoft by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 168,128,024 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $70,720,874,000 after buying an additional 3,103,212 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Microsoft during the fourth quarter valued at about $44,343,058,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its position in Microsoft by 564,387.1% during the second quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in Microsoft by 16.1% during 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 during the period. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.