Lion Street Advisors LLC Grows Holdings in Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Lion Street Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 7,556 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 257 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for 1.2% of Lion Street Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 13th biggest position. Lion Street Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $3,377,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Microsoft by 0.5% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 667,987,038 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $281,035,506,000 after acquiring an additional 3,078,099 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $35,920,047,000. Capital International Investors grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 83,571,070 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,160,020,000 after purchasing an additional 842,884 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC raised its position in Microsoft by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 25,505,600 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,591,126,000 after purchasing an additional 277,881 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 25,381,692 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,544,532,000 after purchasing an additional 403,409 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft

In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 14,398 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $417.41, for a total value of $6,009,869.18. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 786,933 shares in the company, valued at $328,473,703.53. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MSFT has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $550.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. New Street Research initiated coverage on Microsoft in a research note on Monday, June 10th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $570.00 price target on the stock. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Microsoft from $450.00 to $480.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Microsoft from $470.00 to $495.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 18th. Finally, Macquarie upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $460.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 17th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $494.72.

Microsoft Price Performance

MSFT stock opened at $417.14 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a current ratio of 1.27. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $431.08 and a 200-day moving average price of $422.97. Microsoft Co. has a 52-week low of $309.45 and a 52-week high of $468.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.10 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.12, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.90.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $2.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.90 by $0.05. Microsoft had a return on equity of 35.95% and a net margin of 35.96%. The business had revenue of $64.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $64.38 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.69 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 15.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Microsoft Co. will post 13.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 12th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 15th will be given a dividend of $0.75 per share. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 15th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 25.97%.

Microsoft Company 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.