Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Upgraded at The Goldman Sachs Group

The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to a strong-buy rating in a report released on Monday morning,Zacks.com reports.

MSFT has been the subject of several other research reports. Arete Research increased their target price on Microsoft from $710.00 to $730.00 in a research report on Monday, October 27th. Wall Street Zen raised Microsoft from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, January 10th. Raymond James Financial reduced their target price on shares of Microsoft from $630.00 to $600.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 30th. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Redburn Partners set a $560.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-six have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $630.37.

Microsoft Stock Performance

Shares of MSFT stock opened at $459.38 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $485.51 and a 200 day moving average of $503.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.41 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.67, a PEG ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 1.07. Microsoft has a 52 week low of $344.79 and a 52 week high of $555.45.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 29th. The software giant reported $4.13 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.65 by $0.48. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.71% and a return on equity of 32.45%. The firm had revenue of $77.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $75.49 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.30 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 18.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Microsoft will post 13.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 19th will be issued a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 19th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 25.89%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft

In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 2,850 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $478.72, for a total transaction of $1,364,352.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 55,782 shares in the company, valued at $26,703,959.04. This represents a 4.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Bradford L. Smith sold 38,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $518.64, for a total transaction of $19,967,640.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 461,597 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $239,402,668.08. The trade was a 7.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 54,100 shares of company stock worth $27,598,872. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Microsoft

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $50,493,678,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $45,040,162,000 after buying an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the first quarter worth $18,733,827,000. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 500.0% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 49,618,571 shares during the period. Finally, Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in Microsoft by 49,640.3% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 29,967,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $14,905,904,000 after acquiring an additional 29,906,791 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Microsoft News

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Goldman Sachs and other firms reiterated bullish views (Buy/strong‑buy) citing Azure-led AI growth and compounding AI product cycles, which supports upside to MSFT valuation. Goldman Sachs coverage
• Positive Sentiment: New product / commercial traction: Microsoft is pushing agentic AI (Copilot Checkout, agentic retail automation) and expanding partner deployments (SymphonyAI, Fiserv), which can drive monetization across Microsoft 365 and Azure. Copilot retail initiatives
• Positive Sentiment: Enterprise demand signal: CIO and sell‑side surveys still point to Microsoft as a top beneficiary of rising IT/AI budgets — a structural tailwind for Azure and Copilot monetization. CIO survey / analyst notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Community‑first data‑center plan: Microsoft pledged to cover higher electricity costs, replenish water and pay local taxes to avoid community backlash — positive PR and long‑term permit facilitation, but with unclear near‑term cost impact. Data center initiative
• Neutral Sentiment: Strategic Anthropic usage: Microsoft is integrating Anthropic models into products (a potential diversification of model supply), which could improve product performance but also shifts vendor exposure. Anthropic integration report
• Negative Sentiment: Rising AI vendor spend: Reports MSFT may spend ~ $500M/year on Anthropic models raise concern about higher operating/variable AI costs and margin pressure if revenue realization lags. Anthropic spending concern
• Negative Sentiment: Macro/rotation pressure: Tech re‑rating and Fed/rate uncertainty are prompting a growth‑to‑value rotation that disproportionately hurts large AI‑growth names like Microsoft. That broader market dynamic is a major near‑term headwind. Growth-to-value rotation
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive / sentiment hits: Alphabet’s rally (and other AI partnership headlines) and criticisms around Windows quality in niche areas have weighed on MSFT momentum, contributing to today’s larger decline vs. the broader market. Competitive pressure note

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).