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Empire Life Investments Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 4.3% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 184,286 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 8,294 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for 3.8% of Empire Life Investments Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 5th biggest holding. Empire Life Investments Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $68,742,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Essex LLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 16.7% during the second quarter. Essex LLC now owns 15,283 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $5,701,000 after purchasing an additional 2,183 shares in the last quarter. Leelyn Smith LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft by 6.1% during the second quarter. Leelyn Smith LLC now owns 32,799 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $12,235,000 after buying an additional 1,883 shares during the last quarter. Malaga Cove Capital LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 6.4% during the 2nd quarter. Malaga Cove Capital LLC now owns 5,203 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,941,000 after buying an additional 313 shares in the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC grew its holdings in Microsoft by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 226,148 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $84,358,000 after buying an additional 3,641 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rare Wolf Capital LLC increased its stake in Microsoft by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Rare Wolf Capital LLC now owns 26,731 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $9,971,000 after acquiring an additional 573 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their target price on Microsoft from $522.00 to $608.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $550.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, September 15th. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $575.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $569.29.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Microsoft Trending Headlines about Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised their outlook. Oppenheimer increased its Microsoft price target to $570 from $515 while maintaining an Outperform rating, citing sustained Azure and Microsoft 365 commercial momentum into fiscal 2027. Cantor Fitzgerald also reportedly raised its target to $608 and kept an Overweight rating. Oppenheimer Microsoft price target article Positive Sentiment: Azure has additional growth levers. BNP Paribas said recent Azure strength may not reflect the full opportunity, pointing to higher pricing as contracts renew, capacity expansion and a potential SpaceX cloud relationship. Azure growth has reportedly reached the mid-40% range, supporting the view that AI infrastructure demand can continue driving revenue. BNP Paribas Azure outlook article Positive Sentiment: Capital returns remain supportive. Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend approximately 8% to $0.98 per share, extending its dividend-growth streak to more than two decades. The increase signals management confidence, although the modest yield is unlikely to be the primary stock catalyst. Microsoft dividend increase article Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI remains both an opportunity and a concentration risk. Microsoft’s AI partner is reportedly seeking a valuation above $1.2 trillion, potentially reinforcing Microsoft’s Azure and Copilot ecosystem. However, projected cash burn of roughly $278 billion and the company’s reliance on Microsoft-supported infrastructure raise questions about customer durability and AI spending economics. OpenAI valuation and Microsoft article Negative Sentiment: Xbox layoffs pressured sentiment. Microsoft is cutting approximately 268 Xbox jobs, with broader reports pointing to roughly 500 affected employees, while shifting the next Halo game to Activision. The move highlights a continuing gaming reset and was the clearest near-term reason for weakness in MSFT shares. Microsoft Xbox restructuring article Negative Sentiment: AI execution risks remain. Investors continue to monitor heavy capital spending, copyright and regulatory challenges, and concerns that AI revenue is concentrated among a small number of customers. These risks could pressure margins or the valuation if Azure growth fails to meet elevated expectations. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total transaction of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 100,447 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $49,007,086.83. The trade was a 9.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. The trade was a 10.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Trading Down 0.7% MSFT stock opened at $498.00 on Wednesday. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $553.72. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.70 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $471.45 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $424.28.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The business’s revenue was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.65 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.27%.

Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 1.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 84,899 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,553 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises approximately 3.6% of Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd biggest position. Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $31,677,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Tanager Wealth Management LLP raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Tanager Wealth Management LLP now owns 44,118 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $16,457,000 after acquiring an additional 149 shares during the period. Mason & Associates Inc boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 3.6% during the second quarter. Mason & Associates Inc now owns 18,070 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $6,740,000 after buying an additional 626 shares during the period. Northwest Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 2.2% during the second quarter. Northwest Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 11,673 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $4,354,000 after buying an additional 249 shares during the period. Greenline Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft by 3.0% in the second quarter. Greenline Wealth Management LLC now owns 5,596 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,087,000 after buying an additional 163 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mine & Arao Wealth Creation & Management LLC. raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. Mine & Arao Wealth Creation & Management LLC. now owns 4,925 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,837,000 after buying an additional 119 shares during the period. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Microsoft Stock Down 0.7% Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $498.00 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.70 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22. The business has a 50-day moving average of $471.45 and a two-hundred day moving average of $424.28. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $349.20 and a 1 year high of $553.72.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.The business had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.65 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Microsoft Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a $0.98 dividend. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.27%.

Insider Activity at Microsoft In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at approximately $244,092,173.98. The trade was a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total value of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 100,447 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,007,086.83. The trade was a 9.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised their outlook. Oppenheimer increased its Microsoft price target to $570 from $515 while maintaining an Outperform rating, citing sustained Azure and Microsoft 365 commercial momentum into fiscal 2027. Cantor Fitzgerald also reportedly raised its target to $608 and kept an Overweight rating. Oppenheimer Microsoft price target article Positive Sentiment: Azure has additional growth levers. BNP Paribas said recent Azure strength may not reflect the full opportunity, pointing to higher pricing as contracts renew, capacity expansion and a potential SpaceX cloud relationship. Azure growth has reportedly reached the mid-40% range, supporting the view that AI infrastructure demand can continue driving revenue. BNP Paribas Azure outlook article Positive Sentiment: Capital returns remain supportive. Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend approximately 8% to $0.98 per share, extending its dividend-growth streak to more than two decades. The increase signals management confidence, although the modest yield is unlikely to be the primary stock catalyst. Microsoft dividend increase article Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI remains both an opportunity and a concentration risk. Microsoft’s AI partner is reportedly seeking a valuation above $1.2 trillion, potentially reinforcing Microsoft’s Azure and Copilot ecosystem. However, projected cash burn of roughly $278 billion and the company’s reliance on Microsoft-supported infrastructure raise questions about customer durability and AI spending economics. OpenAI valuation and Microsoft article Negative Sentiment: Xbox layoffs pressured sentiment. Microsoft is cutting approximately 268 Xbox jobs, with broader reports pointing to roughly 500 affected employees, while shifting the next Halo game to Activision. The move highlights a continuing gaming reset and was the clearest near-term reason for weakness in MSFT shares. Microsoft Xbox restructuring article Negative Sentiment: AI execution risks remain. Investors continue to monitor heavy capital spending, copyright and regulatory challenges, and concerns that AI revenue is concentrated among a small number of customers. These risks could pressure margins or the valuation if Azure growth fails to meet elevated expectations. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Evercore set a $528.00 target price on Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Phillip Securities cut shares of Microsoft from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 3rd. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $680.00 to $690.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and issued a $575.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Microsoft currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $569.29.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on Microsoft

About Microsoft (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

Read More Five stocks we like better than Microsoft Meta’s Muse Highlights Arm’s Growing Role in AI Infrastructure Oura’s $15.6 Billion IPO Is Betting Investors See More Than a Smart Ring AMD Chips Away at NVIDIA’s AI Throne Is the Fed Playing Chess With Rates—Or Just Behind the Curve Again?

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Griffin Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 79,676 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,192 shares during the quarter. Microsoft makes up about 3.1% of Griffin Asset Management Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest holding. Griffin Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $29,721,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Auto Owners Insurance Co boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 56,160.8% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $29,073,486,000 after purchasing an additional 60,009,531 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Microsoft by 234.5% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 17,822,280 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,619,211,000 after buying an additional 12,493,786 shares during the last quarter. Amundi grew its holdings in Microsoft by 30.8% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 41,675,076 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $15,426,862,000 after buying an additional 9,814,598 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 64.3% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 24,264,779 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,982,083,000 after acquiring an additional 9,493,778 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diamant Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 38,442.1% in the 1st quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,810,388 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,521,001,000 after acquiring an additional 6,792,718 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft In related news, EVP Amy Hood sold 41,674 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $498.27, for a total transaction of $20,764,903.98. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 533,624 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $265,888,830.48. This represents a 7.24% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. This trade represents a 10.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on MSFT shares. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $680.00 to $690.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of Microsoft from $515.00 to $490.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Monday, July 20th. Barclays cut their price target on shares of Microsoft from $545.00 to $512.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, UBS Group set a $525.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Forty-two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $569.29. Get Our Latest Research Report on MSFT

Microsoft Trading Down 0.7% MSFT opened at $498.00 on Wednesday. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $349.20 and a 52 week high of $553.72. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $471.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $424.28. The firm has a market cap of $3.70 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.73, a P/E/G ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.65 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be paid a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 20.27%.

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised their outlook. Oppenheimer increased its Microsoft price target to $570 from $515 while maintaining an Outperform rating, citing sustained Azure and Microsoft 365 commercial momentum into fiscal 2027. Cantor Fitzgerald also reportedly raised its target to $608 and kept an Overweight rating. Oppenheimer Microsoft price target article Positive Sentiment: Azure has additional growth levers. BNP Paribas said recent Azure strength may not reflect the full opportunity, pointing to higher pricing as contracts renew, capacity expansion and a potential SpaceX cloud relationship. Azure growth has reportedly reached the mid-40% range, supporting the view that AI infrastructure demand can continue driving revenue. BNP Paribas Azure outlook article Positive Sentiment: Capital returns remain supportive. Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend approximately 8% to $0.98 per share, extending its dividend-growth streak to more than two decades. The increase signals management confidence, although the modest yield is unlikely to be the primary stock catalyst. Microsoft dividend increase article Neutral Sentiment: OpenAI remains both an opportunity and a concentration risk. Microsoft’s AI partner is reportedly seeking a valuation above $1.2 trillion, potentially reinforcing Microsoft’s Azure and Copilot ecosystem. However, projected cash burn of roughly $278 billion and the company’s reliance on Microsoft-supported infrastructure raise questions about customer durability and AI spending economics. OpenAI valuation and Microsoft article Negative Sentiment: Xbox layoffs pressured sentiment. Microsoft is cutting approximately 268 Xbox jobs, with broader reports pointing to roughly 500 affected employees, while shifting the next Halo game to Activision. The move highlights a continuing gaming reset and was the clearest near-term reason for weakness in MSFT shares. Microsoft Xbox restructuring article Negative Sentiment: AI execution risks remain. Investors continue to monitor heavy capital spending, copyright and regulatory challenges, and concerns that AI revenue is concentrated among a small number of customers. These risks could pressure margins or the valuation if Azure growth fails to meet elevated expectations. Microsoft Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Microsoft Meta’s Muse Highlights Arm’s Growing Role in AI Infrastructure Oura’s $15.6 Billion IPO Is Betting Investors See More Than a Smart Ring AMD Chips Away at NVIDIA’s AI Throne Is the Fed Playing Chess With Rates—Or Just Behind the Curve Again?

Receive News & Ratings for Microsoft Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Microsoft and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

Forum Financial Management LP trimmed its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 2.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 46,743 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,107 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up about 0.2% of Forum Financial Management LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest position. Forum Financial Management LP’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $17,436,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 56,160.8% during the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,073,486,000 after acquiring an additional 60,009,531 shares during the period. Amundi boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 30.8% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 41,675,076 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $15,426,862,000 after purchasing an additional 9,814,598 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 25,300,410 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $12,235,785,000 after purchasing an additional 458,014 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 10.5% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 29,323,744 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $10,852,884,000 after purchasing an additional 2,784,809 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 7.8% during the 4th quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 22,138,798 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $10,715,379,000 after purchasing an additional 1,599,412 shares in the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research firms have recently weighed in on MSFT. CLSA reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Evercore set a $528.00 price objective on Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Microsoft from $450.00 to $530.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, September 4th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, July 20th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $440.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $567.07.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on MSFT Microsoft Stock Performance Shares of Microsoft stock opened at $501.61 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $3.72 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.11. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $469.18 and its 200-day moving average is $423.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22. Microsoft Corporation has a one year low of $349.20 and a one year high of $553.72.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.65 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 19th will be given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 20.27%.

Key Stories Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Higher Azure prices could support growth and margins. BNP Paribas said Microsoft may gain another growth lever as higher Azure prices are introduced to renewing customers, assigning a $549 price target. Microsoft’s Azure Has Another Growth Lever Waiting in the Wings, Analyst Says Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised their outlooks on AI demand. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its Microsoft price target from $522 to $608 and maintained an overweight rating, citing opportunities in AI and cybersecurity. Erste Group also raised its earnings estimates. Cantor Fitzgerald Raises Microsoft Price Target to $608 Positive Sentiment: AI infrastructure demand remains substantial. Microsoft and Anthropic reportedly represent $87.7 billion of the $103 billion contract backlog at AI infrastructure provider Nscale, highlighting the scale of enterprise AI spending and potential Azure demand. Microsoft and Anthropic dominate Nscale’s contract backlog Positive Sentiment: Shareholder-return and valuation support added to the bullish case. Bill Ackman described Microsoft as a core holding after building a roughly $2.4 billion position, while Microsoft’s dividend increase and strong software franchise were cited as additional attractions. Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft is adding a fourth cloud region in Hyderabad, improving geographic resilience, although the company provided no site-level capacity or investment details. Satya Nadella’s expected attendance at a Trump-Xi state dinner could provide diplomatic visibility but has limited direct financial impact. Negative Sentiment: Copyright and AI-regulation concerns remain overhangs. Publisher testimony in ongoing copyright disputes has intensified questions about whether AI products substitute for original content. Microsoft executives have also warned that divergent AI rules could affect industry economics. Microsoft Slips as AI Testimony Sharpens Copyright Risk Negative Sentiment: New gaming-advertising initiatives generated investor skepticism. A patent covering contextual in-game advertisements raised concerns about user experience and monetization strategy. Microsoft Stock Slips on Xbox Patent for Ads in Video Games Negative Sentiment: Investors are weighing elevated AI capital spending, cloud-security concerns following the Hugging Face incident and the possibility that expectations are already priced in after Microsoft’s powerful summer advance. Redburn’s lower $440 target underscores the disagreement over valuation. Insider Buying and Selling In other Microsoft news, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total value of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at $49,007,086.83. This trade represents a 9.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total value of $43,388,826.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at $244,092,173.98. This trade represents a 15.09% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders sold 143,009 shares of company stock valued at $71,420,699. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Microsoft Can Bloom Energy Pop the Top Off AI’s Massive Energy Bottleneck? Coach’s Momentum Powers Tapestry Despite the Stock’s Sharp Pullback AI Is Reshaping SaaS—These 2 Software ETFs Offer Different Ways to Play It Insiders Signal Deep Value In DICK’s Sporting Goods 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).

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Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Tuesday said it will give the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency direct, on-site access to its latest quantum ​computing hardware as part of a new research center the company ‌opened in Maryland alongside the University of Maryland and other industry partners.

The center, located in the university's Discovery District near Washington, D.C., will house a new quantum system that uses Microsoft's Majorana ​2 chip for independent testing and evaluation by DARPA.

Quantum computers hold the ​promise of tackling problems that would take conventional machines thousands of ⁠years. Of particular interest to national security experts is protecting and cracking encrypted communications.

Microsoft ​is one of a number of quantum firms being evaluated by DARPA to discover ​whether any quantum computing approach can yield economically feasible systems by 2033.

Until now, DARPA has evaluated Microsoft's technology remotely, accessing machines in Redmond, Washington, and Europe. The Maryland delivery marks a shift ​to physical access in a dedicated DARPA space where its experts can load ​hardware and run it through their own boot sequences.

"This is a big deal for us because ‌it ⁠essentially enables DARPA to kick the tires and to sort of figure out how good this machine is and how it's performing," Zulfi Alam, corporate vice president of Microsoft Quantum, said in an interview.

Alam said the arrangement imposes discipline as Microsoft ​moves from research ​toward a commercial ⁠product. DARPA's key evaluation metric is whether the value of the computation performed by a quantum system outweighs the system's cost.

"It ​enforces a certain amount of engineering rigor that scientific teams ​normally do ⁠not have," he said, describing DARPA as "a completely trusted organization" with which Microsoft can share both current work and future plans.

Alam said DARPA will start with the Majorana ⁠2 chip, ​but that the system in Maryland will be ​built to swap in future chips Microsoft is developing.

Microsoft has said it plans to have commercial quantum ​systems ready by 2029.

Microsoft's (MSFT +1.59%) fiscal 2026 annual report, filed in late July, put a hard number on a relationship investors have largely had to gauge from the outside. The company booked $24.1 billion of revenue from its commercial arrangements with OpenAI, and the ChatGPT maker owed Microsoft $6.0 billion at June 30.

For perspective, Microsoft's total revenue for fiscal 2026 (the 12 months ended June 30) was $331.8 billion, up 18% year over year. OpenAI alone contributed about 7% of it. No other customer is identified, or given a number, in the filing.

In my view, that one line conveys both sides of the Microsoft story. The company owns a big chunk of OpenAI, so it benefits if the ChatGPT maker keeps scaling. But it's also spending huge amounts building infrastructure for a customer that reportedly spends much more cash than it brings in.

Image source: Getty Images.

A $24.1 billion customerThe disclosure is there because Microsoft is a part owner of OpenAI -- a big enough owner that accounting rules classify the artificial intelligence (AI) leader as a related party and require Microsoft to report the money moving between them.

The filing notes the $24.1 billion includes revenue-sharing payments, but it doesn't break the total down. Investors can't tell how much came from OpenAI renting Azure computing power and how much came from OpenAI paying Microsoft a cut of its own sales.

Whatever the split, the size is striking. Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform, topped $100 billion of revenue for the first time in fiscal 2026, growing 41% year over year. OpenAI's arrangements alone equaled about a quarter of that.

Microsoft doesn't rank its customers, and it says that none made up more than 10% of revenue. But OpenAI is the only one it names, and it is difficult to picture another AI customer anywhere close to this size.

The backlog leans on OpenAI even harderThe greater concentration lies in the revenue Microsoft has already signed up for the future. The company finished fiscal 2026 with $678 billion of commercial remaining performance obligations (contracted work it has not yet delivered or invoiced), up 84% year over year. Excluding OpenAI, chief financial officer Amy Hood said on the July earnings call, that backlog grew 25%. Put another way, most of the year's growth in contracted future revenue comes from one customer.

That's mainly because OpenAI committed last October, as part of its corporate restructuring, to buy an additional $250 billion of Azure services.

Of course, there's a flip side. Microsoft came out of that restructuring with around 27% of OpenAI at the time, a stake it valued at about $135 billion. If OpenAI keeps scaling, Microsoft collects twice -- once by providing its computing power, and again as a part owner.

What if the spending slows down?The risk is that OpenAI isn't a typical anchor customer. The company burned $3.7 billion in the first three months of 2026, according to The Information. More recently, the Financial Times said that OpenAI expects to burn through almost $280 billion of cash from 2026 through 2030. After all, a business using up cash at that rate can keep spending only as long as investors keep financing it.

The terms of the relationship have loosened, too. In April, the companies revised their deal. OpenAI's revenue-sharing payments to Microsoft now extend through 2030 with a total cap. And OpenAI can now serve its products to customers via any cloud provider, although Microsoft is still its main partner and its products ship first on Azure.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has been building as if the demand is permanent. Its additions to property and equipment totaled $115.9 billion in fiscal 2026, up almost 80% from $64.6 billion the year before, which itself was up about 45% from the year before that.

If OpenAI ever slowed its spending, Azure's growth rate could reflect it quickly. So could that backlog.

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

93/100

Today's Change

(

1.59

%) $

7.83

Current Price

$

501.61

Granted, the other 93% of Microsoft's revenue comes from a customer base about as broad as any in business, and operating income grew 21% in fiscal 2026. But the growth story behind the stock leans on Azure, and Azure now leans on OpenAI more than on any other single name.

At about $494 as of this writing, shares trade about 11% below their 52-week high and at about 28 times earnings. Plenty of continued cloud growth is already baked into that price, and OpenAI is a significant part of what is driving the growth.

In the end, I believe the disclosure is a reason for attention, not alarm. The business is excellent. But more of its growth than ever seems to rely on one customer's spending. That's why I see Microsoft stock as a hold right now.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) could see additional upside from Azure pricing over time, even as recent cloud growth has largely been driven by capacity expansion and efficiency gains, according to BNP Paribas Equity Research.

Analyst Stefan Slowinski reiterated a positive view on Microsoft with a $549 price target, implying about 11% upside from the stock’s Sept. 18 closing price of $493.80.

BNP Paribas spoke with Microsoft Investor Relations ahead of the company’s fiscal first-quarter 2027 quiet period. Microsoft did not change its guidance or provide an intra-quarter update.

Azure Pricing Benefits Could Build GraduallySlowinski said GPU rental pricing has become one of the biggest topics in recent investor discussions.

Microsoft acknowledged that Azure pricing is moving higher. However, the company does not plan to alter existing contract economics. Instead, new pricing would take effect as contracts renew.

That means pricing benefits are likely to flow into Azure revenue gradually rather than trigger an immediate jump in growth, the analyst said.

Importantly, Microsoft indicated that recent Azure strength has not been driven by pricing. Instead, fleet efficiency improvements and additional capacity remain the main growth drivers.

BNP Paribas called that encouraging because Azure growth has already accelerated into the mid-40% range before any significant pricing impact.

Microsoft Still Hunting For AI CapacityThe company also pushed back on a Bloomberg report suggesting it plans to scale computing capacity to 38 gigawatts by 2032, although it did not provide its own target.

It declined to address speculation that it may have sourced capacity from SpaceX. However, Microsoft reiterated that it continues to seek additional compute capacity as demand remains ahead of supply.

Slowinski said near-term access to infrastructure that meets Microsoft’s specifications remains difficult.

OpenAI Economics Remain In FocusMicrosoft also confirmed that a cumulative cap exists on its revenue-sharing arrangement with OpenAI, although it did not disclose the amount.

The Information previously reported a $38 billion cap. BNP Paribas estimates that level could allow revenue sharing to continue through early fiscal 2029 if OpenAI tracks toward reported long-term revenue targets.

Microsoft said OpenAI revenue sharing has not been a meaningful source of Azure outperformance in recent quarters. The company also said it would disclose the contribution if it became material.

Meanwhile, the company reiterated that its recent segment restructuring reflects how the company increasingly manages its businesses internally. It also maintained its expectation for Microsoft 365 growth to accelerate through fiscal 2027.

Microsoft carries a Buy consensus rating and an average price forecast of $563.04.

Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating Monday and raised its target to $608. Citizens maintained a Market Outperform rating with a $550 target on Sept. 15. Stifel maintained a Hold rating and raised its target to $530 on Sept. 4.

Microsoft Stock Performance And Technical AnalysisMicrosoft stock traded higher Monday as a broad technology rally lifted large-cap stocks.

The stock remains above its 50-day SMA of $466.92, 100-day SMA of $435.27 and 200-day SMA of $431.64.

However, the stock trades slightly below its 20-day SMA of $498.20. MACD is also below its signal line, pointing to softer near-term momentum.

Resistance sits near $513.50, while support is around $486.

Price ActionMicrosoft shares were up 0.54% at $496.44 at the time of publication Monday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Photo via Shutterstock

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Lesa Sroufe & Co lowered its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 23,584 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,220 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises approximately 6.1% of Lesa Sroufe & Co’s portfolio, making the stock its largest holding. Lesa Sroufe & Co’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $8,797,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Frankly Finances LLC bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter worth $35,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth about $59,000. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. bought a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 4th quarter valued at about $101,000. Ramsey Quantitative Systems bought a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at about $112,000. Finally, Midwest Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 16.6% during the 1st quarter. Midwest Capital Advisors LLC now owns 422 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $156,000 after buying an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $515.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $550.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, September 15th. Evercore set a $528.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Barclays reduced their price objective on Microsoft from $545.00 to $512.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Benchmark reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Friday, July 24th. Forty-two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $564.27.

View Our Latest Report on Microsoft Microsoft Stock Performance NASDAQ MSFT opened at $493.78 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $3.67 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.11. Microsoft Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $349.20 and a fifty-two week high of $553.72. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $466.97 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $422.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.23.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.The business’s revenue was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.65 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. Microsoft’s payout ratio is presently 21.83%.

Key Microsoft News Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s Azure and AI businesses remain the primary bullish catalysts. Analysts point to accelerating cloud growth, broad enterprise adoption and Microsoft’s distribution advantage through Azure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot. These Magnificent Seven Members Still Look Cheap Positive Sentiment: Causaly expanded its collaboration with Microsoft, making its agentic scientific-research tools available within Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 and Teams. The deal supports Microsoft’s strategy of adding specialized AI workflows to its enterprise software ecosystem. Causaly is Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s 8% quarterly dividend increase reinforces its strong cash generation and provides shareholder support, although the company continues to invest heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure. Microsoft Slips as Its Quarterly Dividend Climbs 8% Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman called recent reports of concerning model behavior at OpenAI a “serious situation” and emphasized the need for controllable, human-aligned AI. The comments highlight Microsoft’s safety focus but also underscore reputational and product-liability risks across the sector. OpenAI’s latest AI revelation is a serious situation Negative Sentiment: Unsealed filings reportedly include Microsoft and OpenAI employees’ concerns that AI training on millions of news articles could amount to the “largest theft of labor in human history.” The disclosures may weaken the companies’ fair-use defense and increase potential litigation, licensing and regulatory costs. OpenAI, Microsoft executives’ quotes on AI training threaten copyright defense Negative Sentiment: Reports of insider selling added to near-term sentiment pressure, while Microsoft faces competitive challenges from Salesforce’s AIforce and ongoing debate over whether its substantial AI spending will generate adequate returns. Microsoft Trading Down After Insider Selling Insider Activity at Microsoft In related news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total value of $43,388,826.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $244,092,173.98. This represents a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Amy Hood sold 41,674 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $498.27, for a total transaction of $20,764,903.98. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 533,624 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $265,888,830.48. This trade represents a 7.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 143,009 shares of company stock valued at $71,420,699 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

About Microsoft (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Microsoft NVIDIA Just Named AI’s Next Bottleneck—And These 3 Stocks Sit Right In It Gold Has Gone Sideways, But These 3 Stocks Haven’t The AI Bottleneck Is Not Chips Anymore and 3 Pipeline Stocks Are Cashing In These 3 Stocks Under $20 Have Wall Street Looking Past the Share Price

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Louisbourg Investments Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 3.5% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 41,327 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,493 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for approximately 2.8% of Louisbourg Investments Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 4th biggest holding. Louisbourg Investments Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $15,416,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Auto Owners Insurance Co grew its stake in Microsoft by 56,160.8% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $29,073,486,000 after buying an additional 60,009,531 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 234.5% in the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 17,822,280 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,619,211,000 after buying an additional 12,493,786 shares during the period. Amundi lifted its position in Microsoft by 30.8% in the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 41,675,076 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $15,426,862,000 after buying an additional 9,814,598 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 64.3% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 24,264,779 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $8,982,083,000 after acquiring an additional 9,493,778 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Diamant Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Microsoft by 38,442.1% during the 1st quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,810,388 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $2,521,001,000 after purchasing an additional 6,792,718 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Microsoft Price Performance Microsoft stock opened at $493.78 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $466.97 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $422.94. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $553.72. The stock has a market cap of $3.67 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.49, a P/E/G ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.65 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 EPS for the current year. Microsoft Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be paid a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 21.83%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft In related news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at approximately $244,092,173.98. The trade was a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Amy Hood sold 41,674 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $498.27, for a total value of $20,764,903.98. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 533,624 shares in the company, valued at approximately $265,888,830.48. The trade was a 7.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, July 20th. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $660.00 target price on Microsoft in a research note on Monday, August 10th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $515.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, September 3rd. Finally, Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday, July 24th. Forty-two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $564.27.

Get Our Latest Analysis on Microsoft

Key Microsoft News Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s Azure and AI businesses remain the primary bullish catalysts. Analysts point to accelerating cloud growth, broad enterprise adoption and Microsoft’s distribution advantage through Azure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot. These Magnificent Seven Members Still Look Cheap Positive Sentiment: Causaly expanded its collaboration with Microsoft, making its agentic scientific-research tools available within Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 and Teams. The deal supports Microsoft’s strategy of adding specialized AI workflows to its enterprise software ecosystem. Causaly is Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s 8% quarterly dividend increase reinforces its strong cash generation and provides shareholder support, although the company continues to invest heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure. Microsoft Slips as Its Quarterly Dividend Climbs 8% Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman called recent reports of concerning model behavior at OpenAI a “serious situation” and emphasized the need for controllable, human-aligned AI. The comments highlight Microsoft’s safety focus but also underscore reputational and product-liability risks across the sector. OpenAI’s latest AI revelation is a serious situation Negative Sentiment: Unsealed filings reportedly include Microsoft and OpenAI employees’ concerns that AI training on millions of news articles could amount to the “largest theft of labor in human history.” The disclosures may weaken the companies’ fair-use defense and increase potential litigation, licensing and regulatory costs. OpenAI, Microsoft executives’ quotes on AI training threaten copyright defense Negative Sentiment: Reports of insider selling added to near-term sentiment pressure, while Microsoft faces competitive challenges from Salesforce’s AIforce and ongoing debate over whether its substantial AI spending will generate adequate returns. Microsoft Trading Down After Insider Selling Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Microsoft NVIDIA Just Named AI’s Next Bottleneck—And These 3 Stocks Sit Right In It Gold Has Gone Sideways, But These 3 Stocks Haven’t The AI Bottleneck Is Not Chips Anymore and 3 Pipeline Stocks Are Cashing In These 3 Stocks Under $20 Have Wall Street Looking Past the Share Price

Receive News & Ratings for Microsoft Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Microsoft and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

WT Wealth Management lifted its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 29.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 15,582 shares of the software giant’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,578 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises approximately 1.6% of WT Wealth Management’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 18th biggest position. WT Wealth Management’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $5,812,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Frankly Finances LLC purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the second quarter valued at approximately $35,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth $59,000. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the fourth quarter valued at $101,000. Ramsey Quantitative Systems purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at $112,000. Finally, Midwest Capital Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 16.6% during the 1st quarter. Midwest Capital Advisors LLC now owns 422 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $156,000 after acquiring an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Microsoft In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,188,276.96. The trade was a 10.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total value of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,007,086.83. This represents a 9.05% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 143,009 shares of company stock valued at $71,420,699 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $493.78 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.23. Microsoft Corporation has a one year low of $349.20 and a one year high of $553.72. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.67 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.49, a PEG ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.11. The company’s fifty day moving average is $466.97 and its two-hundred day moving average is $422.94. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. The business’s revenue was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.65 EPS. Analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a $0.98 dividend. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio is 21.83%.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s Azure and AI businesses remain the primary bullish catalysts. Analysts point to accelerating cloud growth, broad enterprise adoption and Microsoft’s distribution advantage through Azure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot. These Magnificent Seven Members Still Look Cheap Positive Sentiment: Causaly expanded its collaboration with Microsoft, making its agentic scientific-research tools available within Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 and Teams. The deal supports Microsoft’s strategy of adding specialized AI workflows to its enterprise software ecosystem. Causaly is Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s 8% quarterly dividend increase reinforces its strong cash generation and provides shareholder support, although the company continues to invest heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure. Microsoft Slips as Its Quarterly Dividend Climbs 8% Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman called recent reports of concerning model behavior at OpenAI a “serious situation” and emphasized the need for controllable, human-aligned AI. The comments highlight Microsoft’s safety focus but also underscore reputational and product-liability risks across the sector. OpenAI’s latest AI revelation is a serious situation Negative Sentiment: Unsealed filings reportedly include Microsoft and OpenAI employees’ concerns that AI training on millions of news articles could amount to the “largest theft of labor in human history.” The disclosures may weaken the companies’ fair-use defense and increase potential litigation, licensing and regulatory costs. OpenAI, Microsoft executives’ quotes on AI training threaten copyright defense Negative Sentiment: Reports of insider selling added to near-term sentiment pressure, while Microsoft faces competitive challenges from Salesforce’s AIforce and ongoing debate over whether its substantial AI spending will generate adequate returns. Microsoft Trading Down After Insider Selling Analyst Ratings Changes MSFT has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Microsoft from $540.00 to $550.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $680.00 to $690.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $515.00 to $490.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Microsoft from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $640.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Forty-two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Microsoft currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $564.27.

View Our Latest Stock Report on MSFT

Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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My Personal CFO LLC grew its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 7.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 52,047 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,824 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for approximately 7.6% of My Personal CFO LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest holding. My Personal CFO LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $19,415,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 4.0% during the second quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 229,490 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $85,604,000 after acquiring an additional 8,773 shares in the last quarter. Markel Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Markel Group Inc. now owns 537,630 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $199,014,000 after acquiring an additional 1,950 shares during the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 8.4% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 6,921,677 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $2,562,197,000 after purchasing an additional 537,634 shares during the last quarter. Taylor Securities Services Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth $2,616,000. Finally, Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 138.8% in the first quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. now owns 1,356,359 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $502,077,000 after buying an additional 788,297 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research analysts recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Mizuho lowered their target price on shares of Microsoft from $515.00 to $490.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 15th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $515.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $450.00 to $530.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, September 4th. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating and set a $540.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, August 31st. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $564.27.

Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Microsoft Insider Buying and Selling In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. This represents a 10.13% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $244,092,173.98. This represents a 15.09% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Trending Headlines about Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s Azure and AI businesses remain the primary bullish catalysts. Analysts point to accelerating cloud growth, broad enterprise adoption and Microsoft’s distribution advantage through Azure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot. These Magnificent Seven Members Still Look Cheap Positive Sentiment: Causaly expanded its collaboration with Microsoft, making its agentic scientific-research tools available within Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft 365 and Teams. The deal supports Microsoft’s strategy of adding specialized AI workflows to its enterprise software ecosystem. Causaly is Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Positive Sentiment: Microsoft’s 8% quarterly dividend increase reinforces its strong cash generation and provides shareholder support, although the company continues to invest heavily in cloud and AI infrastructure. Microsoft Slips as Its Quarterly Dividend Climbs 8% Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman called recent reports of concerning model behavior at OpenAI a “serious situation” and emphasized the need for controllable, human-aligned AI. The comments highlight Microsoft’s safety focus but also underscore reputational and product-liability risks across the sector. OpenAI’s latest AI revelation is a serious situation Negative Sentiment: Unsealed filings reportedly include Microsoft and OpenAI employees’ concerns that AI training on millions of news articles could amount to the “largest theft of labor in human history.” The disclosures may weaken the companies’ fair-use defense and increase potential litigation, licensing and regulatory costs. OpenAI, Microsoft executives’ quotes on AI training threaten copyright defense Negative Sentiment: Reports of insider selling added to near-term sentiment pressure, while Microsoft faces competitive challenges from Salesforce’s AIforce and ongoing debate over whether its substantial AI spending will generate adequate returns. Microsoft Trading Down After Insider Selling Microsoft Price Performance Shares of NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $493.78 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $553.72. The company’s 50 day moving average is $466.97 and its 200 day moving average is $422.77. The company has a market cap of $3.67 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.65 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.98 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 20.27%.

About Microsoft (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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River Street Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 8.8% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 17,946 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 1,454 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises about 2.0% of River Street Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 14th biggest holding. River Street Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $6,694,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of MSFT. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Microsoft by 2.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 717,942,580 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $347,211,391,000 after acquiring an additional 15,955,898 shares during the last quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co boosted its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 56,160.8% during the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $29,073,486,000 after purchasing an additional 60,009,531 shares during the last quarter. Amundi grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 30.8% in the first quarter. Amundi now owns 41,675,076 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $15,426,862,000 after purchasing an additional 9,814,598 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 10.5% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 29,323,744 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $10,852,884,000 after purchasing an additional 2,784,809 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 25,300,410 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $12,235,785,000 after purchasing an additional 458,014 shares during the last quarter. 71.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes MSFT has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $640.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on Microsoft from $450.00 to $530.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 4th. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $540.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $545.00 to $512.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Forty-two research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $564.27.

View Our Latest Stock Report on MSFT Microsoft News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Azure and cloud AI remain the main catalyst: Coverage highlights Azure’s more than $100 billion annual revenue milestone and 43% year-over-year growth, with agentic AI increasing demand for cloud compute. Microsoft’s Azure payment-security service also gives financial institutions a way to manage payment infrastructure in the cloud, although pricing and customer commitments were not disclosed. Microsoft Jumps as Azure Turns Payment Vaults Into a Service Positive Sentiment: Copilot’s enterprise reach is expanding: Causaly’s scientific research platform is now available within Microsoft Copilot and Teams, adding a specialized life-sciences workflow to Microsoft’s AI ecosystem. Microsoft Ventures is also backing ManticAI, a British startup developing AI systems for predicting global events. Causaly is Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Positive Sentiment: Cash returns and analyst support help sentiment: Microsoft’s 8% dividend increase to $0.98 per quarter reinforces confidence in cash generation despite heavy AI investment. Citizens JMP also reiterated a “Market Outperform” rating, supporting the bullish view. Citizens JMP Reiterates Market Outperform Rating Neutral Sentiment: AI strategy remains a valuation debate: Microsoft is promoting an internal AI-transformation playbook and continues to position agentic AI as a major growth opportunity. Investors must weigh that opportunity against rising data-center spending, execution risks and higher interest-rate sensitivity. Negative Sentiment: Copyright litigation risk has intensified: Newly unsealed court documents reportedly show Microsoft and OpenAI executives describing AI products as substitutes for journalism, while one Microsoft executive characterized AI scraping as “the largest theft of labor in human history.” News organizations argue the statements weaken the companies’ fair-use defense in the New York Times copyright case, potentially increasing legal costs, damages and regulatory scrutiny. OpenAI and Microsoft executives quotes on AI training Insider Buying and Selling at Microsoft In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total value of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,188,276.96. This trade represents a 10.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Amy Hood sold 41,674 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $498.27, for a total transaction of $20,764,903.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 533,624 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $265,888,830.48. This trade represents a 7.24% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Price Performance Shares of MSFT opened at $497.75 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $464.80 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $422.27. The stock has a market cap of $3.70 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.58 and a beta of 1.11. Microsoft Corporation has a 1-year low of $349.20 and a 1-year high of $553.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.65 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 EPS for the current year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 19th. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 21.83%.

Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Newly unsealed court documents showed considerable concern within Microsoft and its close partner OpenAI over the use of millions of news articles to develop artificial intelligence systems.

As OpenAI was forging ahead with its work, Microsoft employees debated whether what OpenAI was doing represented the “largest theft of labor in human history” and could create a “doom loop” that could ultimately threaten the quality of the large language models they were building.

“Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” said one internal Microsoft document from 2023.

Inside OpenAI, there was also worry that its ChatGPT chatbot could lead people away from reading news elsewhere. In a June 2023 memo, Nick Turley, who led the team developing ChatGPT, wrote that A.I. posed an “existential threat” to publishers. And in February 2024, he wrote that A.I. products “will get more and more substitutive as they get better.”

Snippets of those discussions were made public on Thursday as part of a closely watched lawsuit The New York Times filed against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023. Eleven other publishers have joined the suit. Judge Sidney H. Stein of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is considering motions for a summary judgment. Documents related to the case are slowly being unsealed as the judge considers those motions.

The publishers argue that the tech companies violated copyright law by scraping millions of their stories off the internet and other databases, and using the text, without approval or pay, to train advanced A.I. systems.

Microsoft and OpenAI contend their work was covered under legal protections for “fair use” of copyrighted material. They say the articles were sufficiently transformed into entirely new work by A.I., and were not substitutes that harm the value of the original work.

A Microsoft spokesman, Alex Haurek, said in a statement that internal memos, written by Brent Hecht, Microsoft director of applied science, did not represent the company’s views.

“Microsoft’s position is set out in its court filings, which explain why these transformative uses are consistent with copyright law and why Copilot is not a substitute for publishers’ journalism,” he said, referring to Microsoft’s A.I. assistant.

OpenAI did not return requests to comment.

In a separate filing, Microsoft said Dr. Hecht was a research academic who also worked at Northwestern University. It said he was not a decision maker and was employed by Microsoft “to present divergent and asymmetric perspectives.”

“The world can see what OpenAI and Microsoft thought all along about the fairness of their own behavior,” Steven Lieberman, who represents the New York Daily News and seven other newspapers in the case, said in a statement. The New York Times declined to comment.

The news companies said OpenAI deployed tools specifically to evade the paywalls set up by publishers. According to the documents, when a staffer wrote Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, and told him about developing “a hack to get around nytimes paywall,” Mr. Brockman responded “ah nice.”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, also said in a deposition with lawyers that “anything that is paywalled should be licensed by anyone who wants to use it.” He said that if he “had been made aware that OpenAI had scraped and trained on information that was behind a paywall,” he would have invoked Microsoft’s right to require OpenAI to retrain its models.

Microsoft’s Mr. Haurek said that Mr. Nadella “spoke to broad principles and changes underway in how people find and consume information.”

The documents show concern within the companies that the news industry could not survive if its work was taken. Large A.I. models “are a product that destroys its supply chain,” Dr. Hecht wrote.

Some inside OpenAI also had concerns about copying the news articles, according to the unsealed documents. In 2020 Jack Clark, who was OpenAI’s policy director, wrote a memo to Mr. Brockman and Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive. Mr. Clark, who later left to co-found Anthropic, wrote that the start-up’s work “is going to increasingly lead to us creating systems that substitute for the labor of the people that define the ‘culture’ of society.”

Mr. Clark warned “OpenAI will become the symbol of how Silicon Valley is thoughtlessly stepping into other parts of life and leaving a mess on the carpet.”

(Anthropic referred a request for comment to OpenAI.)

There were also signs that ChatGPT was not directing users to read relevant stories as they were written by publishers, according to the documents. In February 2023, an OpenAI software engineer wrote to colleagues that, “no matter how prominently we show the links, users won’t click.”

A.I. “products are largely substitutive, period,” OpenAI’s Mr. Turley wrote.

Waverly Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 23.1% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 689,804 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 129,313 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up 1.5% of Waverly Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 6th biggest position. Waverly Advisors LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $257,311,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Microsoft by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 717,942,580 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $347,211,391,000 after buying an additional 15,955,898 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the second quarter worth $27,338,370,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of Microsoft by 0.9% in the second quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 64,375,360 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $24,013,297,000 after acquiring an additional 543,172 shares in the last quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co raised its stake in shares of Microsoft by 56,160.8% in the 4th quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 60,116,384 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,073,486,000 after acquiring an additional 60,009,531 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft during the 2nd quarter valued at $18,306,443,000. 71.13% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $660.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Microsoft from $450.00 to $530.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, September 4th. Mizuho decreased their target price on Microsoft from $515.00 to $490.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $540.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Tigress Financial raised their target price on Microsoft from $680.00 to $690.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Forty-two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $564.27.

Get Our Latest Analysis on Microsoft Key Stories Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Dividend raised 8%: Microsoft increased its quarterly payout from $0.91 to $0.98 per share, payable December 10 to shareholders of record November 19. The increase signals confidence in cash generation and brings the annualized yield to approximately 0.8%, while the payout ratio remains near 20%. Microsoft announces quarterly dividend increase Positive Sentiment: Azure momentum remains a key catalyst: Azure revenue growth accelerated to 43% year over year in the latest quarter, with management expecting another acceleration. Azure has also surpassed $100 billion in annual sales, reinforcing the investment case for Microsoft’s cloud and agentic-AI strategy. Microsoft Azure agentic AI growth Positive Sentiment: Enterprise AI ecosystem is expanding: Dun & Bradstreet is integrating its commercial data graph with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365 agents, potentially supporting broader enterprise adoption of Microsoft’s AI tools. Dun and Bradstreet Microsoft Copilot integration Neutral Sentiment: Upcoming product and reporting updates: Microsoft’s October 7 Windows and Surface event could provide a hardware and on-device AI catalyst. Separately, plans to disclose Azure revenue should give investors greater visibility into whether AI spending is translating into sales. Microsoft Windows and Surface event Negative Sentiment: AI spending is the main overhang: Microsoft is reportedly targeting roughly 38 gigawatts of data-center capacity by 2032, while capital expenditures are already elevated and expected to rise again. Investors are concerned that returns from AI infrastructure may take time to materialize. Microsoft AI spending analysis Negative Sentiment: AI execution concerns persist: Federal agencies can begin contracting for Microsoft’s new AI government tier on October 1, but some features may not be available immediately. The gap between commitments and delivery could slow adoption or raise questions about execution. Microsoft government AI tier Negative Sentiment: Insider selling adds a modest headwind: EVP Amy Hood sold 41,674 shares worth approximately $20.8 million under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. Because the transaction was scheduled in advance, it is not necessarily a bearish signal, but it may weigh marginally on sentiment. Microsoft Trading Down 1.4% NASDAQ MSFT opened at $490.30 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.64 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22. Microsoft Corporation has a 12 month low of $349.20 and a 12 month high of $553.72. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $462.53 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $421.53.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The business had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.65 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Microsoft Increases Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.98 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 19th. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.27%.

Insider Transactions at Microsoft In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total value of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. The trade was a 10.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total value of $4,878,900.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,007,086.83. This represents a 9.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 143,009 shares of company stock worth $71,420,699 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Federal agencies can sign contracts for Microsoft's new AI government tier starting October 1, but key features may not arrive until later. Whether that gap kills the deal before it starts reveals something uncomfortable about how Microsoft is betting on…

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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) has told federal buyers that a new top government tier of its productivity suite, plus a companion agent-management product, will be available for Government Community Cloud customers to purchase on October 1. Individual capabilities will light up in phases as each workload clears its required government security accreditation, and additional Copilot features are slated for the months after general availability.

That is the tension for Microsoft shareholders. Agencies are being asked to commit annual budget to a bundle whose roadmap is still partly pending. Whether that translates into higher revenue per government customer will depend on procurement timing and measured usage, not on the announcement. The stock closed at $497.12 and is down 2.74% over the past year, so investors are already discounting execution risk in the AI buildout.

What the G7 Tier Adds on Top The new suite layers Copilot, identity and security tooling, and agent-governance controls on top of the prior government tier. The headline addition is Agent 365, which Microsoft has framed on the commercial side as providing security operations, financial operations, observability of token spending, and manageability of token spending across business processes.

Agent governance sounds abstract but solves a concrete administrative problem. As employees spin up AI assistants, an agency needs to know which ones exist, what data they touch, and who is accountable. That is a credible reason to pay more, and it fits a platform where nearly 40 million agents are already registered across tens of thousands of companies.

Why Phased Availability Is a Commercial Risk Government authorization is a security accreditation for cloud workloads. Phased feature arrival reflects the accreditation process rather than product defects.

But an agency budgeting for a suite it cannot fully use yet has a weaker internal case, and federal procurement cycles are annual. The gap between purchase availability and feature completeness matters more here than in commercial sales, where usage-based billing lets Microsoft grow with the customer. On the commercial side, net paid seats more than doubled sequentially to over 30 million Copilot seats. Government cadence does not work that way.

Conversion, With History as Context A prior federal agreement offered eligible customers of the previous government tier Copilot at no cost for a limited period. The useful question is how many seats convert to paid once an incentive ends.

Disclosed pricing for the new tier and measured government seat conversion remain absent from the public record. Before any credible revenue forecast is possible, Microsoft would need to disclose the tier’s per-seat price, which workloads are authorized at general availability, and paid conversion from earlier no-cost federal deployments.

Satya Nadella framed the broader model this way: “This is the first time where you really have an enterprise-wide tool which has a both perceived and usage-based pricing.” Government contracts rarely absorb consumption pricing quickly.

Bull and Bear Case for MSFT Stock The bull case rests on the idea that a single federal launch cannot move the stock by itself. Azure crossed $100 billion in full-year revenue, commercial remaining performance obligations reached $678 billion, up 84%, and analysts carry an average target of $572.92 with 38 Buy and 14 Strong Buy ratings.

The bear case is capital intensity meeting uncertain conversion. Full-year capital expenditures hit $115.95 billion, free cash flow fell 23.19% in the quarter, and the shares trade at roughly 28 times earnings while the AI monetization curve, especially in government, remains unproven. That $116 billion of capex has to be powered and cooled by somebody, which is why the picks-and-shovels suppliers behind the data-center buildout keep showing up in our free report on seven AI infrastructure names that aren’t chipmakers.

The variable that decides between them is what Microsoft discloses in coming quarters about paid government seat counts and workload authorization progress, rather than the October launch itself.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Annual shareholders meeting set for Dec. 8, 2026

, /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.98 per share, reflecting a 7 cent or 8% increase over the previous quarter's dividend. The dividend is payable Dec. 10, 2026, to shareholders of record on Nov. 19, 2026. The ex-dividend date will be Nov. 19, 2026.

In addition, the company announced the 2026 Annual Shareholders Meeting will be held Dec. 8, 2026. Shareholders at the close of business on Sept. 30, 2026, the record date, will be entitled to vote their shares.

This year's annual shareholders meeting will be held virtually and hosted by Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer; Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Brad Smith, vice chair and president; and Sandra E. Peterson, Microsoft lead independent director.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Sound Income Strategies LLC lifted its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 5.2% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 36,558 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,811 shares during the period. Sound Income Strategies LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $13,637,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of MSFT. Fairway Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Microsoft by 287.0% in the fourth quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the period. Frankly Finances LLC acquired a new position in shares of Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at $35,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $59,000. Lifetime Wealth Management P.C. acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the 4th quarter worth $101,000. Finally, Nvest Wealth Strategies Inc. acquired a new stake in Microsoft during the 4th quarter worth $124,000. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

More Microsoft News Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft published a 37-page draft code of conduct for its in-house AI models, emphasizing that advanced AI should remain under meaningful human control and should not deceive people, resist shutdown, or hack systems. Investors appeared to interpret the framework as a way to address regulatory and reputational risks while supporting enterprise adoption. Microsoft drafts code of conduct to keep its AI under human control Positive Sentiment: Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman called for greater coordination among leading AI companies, including third-party disclosure of model capabilities. The move may help Microsoft position itself as a responsible AI leader as safety concerns and potential regulation intensify. Microsoft AI chief: Now’s the time for top labs to coordinate on safety Positive Sentiment: Investor commentary remains supportive of Microsoft’s fundamentals, citing Azure growth, more than $100 billion in annual Azure revenue, strong Copilot adoption, and a large cloud backlog. Bank of America reportedly raised its price target to $600, while other analysts maintain Buy or Outperform ratings. Positive Sentiment: Microsoft is one of the few major hyperscalers still maintaining share repurchases while expanding AI infrastructure, potentially supporting per-share earnings if cash generation remains strong. The End of Big Tech Buybacks Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft plans a substantial expansion of global data-center capacity to meet AI and cloud demand. The investment reinforces long-term growth prospects, but returns will depend on converting heavy spending on power, land, and computing equipment into durable revenue and margins. Microsoft to triple data centre capacity Negative Sentiment: Chipmaker weakness, rising Treasury yields, and concerns that AI development may need to slow pressured the wider technology sector. These factors could weigh on Microsoft’s valuation despite its relative strength and defensive enterprise-software exposure. S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Drop on Chipmaker Weakness Insider Transactions at Microsoft In other news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total value of $43,388,826.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at $244,092,173.98. This trade represents a 15.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 42,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. This represents a 10.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 101,335 shares of company stock valued at $50,655,795 in the last ninety days. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Microsoft Stock Performance MSFT opened at $505.41 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.75 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $458.23 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $420.22. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $349.20 and a 1 year high of $553.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.22.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $90.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $87.62 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.65 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Microsoft from $540.00 to $550.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Scotiabank restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $510.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Evercore set a $528.00 price target on Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. CLSA reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $515.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Forty-two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $564.27.

Read Our Latest Research Report on MSFT

About Microsoft (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images In an internal memo, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella weighed in on the growing debate over whether the AI industry is moving too fast.

Nadella said AI should remain under human control, endorsed broader third-party testing, and warned that companies must take time to make the technology safety, according to the memo, which was posted to a company message board late Monday.

"As the stakes get higher, one should take all the time they need," Nadella wrote. "If not you will anyway lose permission to operate."

His comments follow dire warnings from some AI researchers, who said last week that the technology might kill all humans.

This weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed slower AI development and said his company would allow outside monitoring of its model progress. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman concurred on third-party monitoring and expressed support for slowing deployment when necessary to ensure alignment and safety.

Sam Altman explains why AI will replace 40% of your work

Microsoft AI on Monday released a draft of its 37-page code of conduct for its "humanist" AI models. "Things we have worried about for a long time in theory have become very real," Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman wrote.

Read the full memo"There was a lot of conversation about AI over the weekend. As a platform company, for us the focus remains on putting our approach into practice across three areas.

First, we need to be clear about the design goal. As I shared, AI has to remain under human control and broadly benefit society. That means building a frontier ecosystem where both closed and open-source models can thrive, and being deliberate about pacing when it comes to alignment. I think of this like testing. We all do deliberate pacing when it comes to pre-release R&D and testing. And having more outside/3P testing/testers is a good thing. And as the stakes get higher, one should take all the time they need! If not you will anyway lose permission to operate. That is how we work every day. We will approach this with all the work we are doing to ensure observability at every layer of stack and use to enforce governance and containment. We will also use this as the guide to how we build our models. Mustafa published the "Code of Conduct" that underlies our own first party MAI models today for public consultation.

Second, for our customers, the key is making sure they stay in control of their unique and tacit knowledge, so they can build their own continuous learning loop/hill climbing machine, without becoming dependent on any one model provider. This is really what Foundry enables, and there was a great demo showing how it makes long-running agents enterprise ready, with security, safety guardrails, FinOps, etc. all built in from the start.

And third, we have to earn the permission to build the infrastructure that powers all of this by ensuring the benefits are felt locally. Our datacenter in Quincy is probably the best example of what it looks like when we grow alongside a community over time, and Brad shared that story on Sunday.

So really, it's one approach across three layers: how we build at the frontier, how we enable our customers to stay in control, and how we make sure the economic benefits diffuse broadly across communities and countries.

And importantly, as a company we can point to real action behind the words."

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Microsoft AI Artificial Intelligence More Enterprise Software OpenAI Anthropic Exclusive

Microsoft and Alphabet both posted monster cloud quarters and both are spending at a pace that would have seemed reckless two years ago, but only one of them is funding the buildout without going to the debt markets, and that…

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) both just reported blockbuster cloud quarters, and both are pouring unprecedented sums into AI infrastructure. The question investors keep asking is simple: whose capex is actually converting into durable revenue? Microsoft leaned on Azure discipline and monetized capacity. Alphabet leaned on raw growth, taking on debt and pausing buybacks to fund the buildout.

Azure Crossed $100 Billion. Google Cloud Grew Faster. Microsoft’s fiscal Q4 landed with revenue of $90.01 billion, up 17.8%, and Azure grew 43% year-over-year. Azure crossed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time, and commercial remaining performance obligations jumped 84% to $678 billion. That backlog is the tell. Customers have already committed the cash. CEO Satya Nadella framed the quarter as “advancing the frontier on the cost-to-outcome curve.”

Alphabet’s Q2 was louder on the top line. Revenue climbed 24.2% to $119.80 billion, and Google Cloud accelerated to 82% growth, reaching $24.77 billion. Sundar Pichai noted that “nearly 90% of the Fortune 100” use Gemini Enterprise. Impressive. The catch is what it cost.

Capex Is Where the Strategies Diverge Metric Microsoft (FY26) Alphabet (Q2 26) Capital expenditures $115.95B full year $44.92B in one quarter Operating cash flow $182.9B annual $39.07B quarterly Free cash flow $66.99B annual -$5.86B in Q2 Financing move Dividends and buybacks continue $70B raised, buyback suspended Microsoft is funding a monster buildout from within. Alphabet went to the debt and equity markets to keep pace, lifting long-term debt from $46.5 billion to $98.2 billion and pushing interest expense up nearly 5x. CFO Amy Hood argued Microsoft’s structure gives it optionality, saying “if the demand environment changes, you just slow down what is, in fact, the largest component.” That flexibility matters when GPUs depreciate fast.

Who Is Monetizing the Silicon Better Microsoft 365 Copilot passed 30 million paid seats, and Hood said “additional in-quarter capacity for Azure was quickly monetized.” Alphabet counters with reach: Gemini processes 22 billion API tokens per minute, and the Gemini App has 950 million monthly active users. Consumer scale, yes. Enterprise dollars per GPU-hour, less clear.

What Investors Should Track Into 2027 I will be watching Azure’s guided approximately 45% constant-currency growth for Q1 FY27 against Google Cloud’s ability to keep 80%-plus growth without another capital raise. If Alphabet’s free cash flow stays negative into 2027, the buyback pause gets uncomfortable.

Why I Give Microsoft the Edge Right Now For me, Microsoft looks ahead on spending discipline. A $678 billion RPO and self-funded capex beat a faster growth rate paid for with $70 billion of fresh capital. Alphabet trades at a cheaper P/E of 15 versus Microsoft’s 28, which suits a value-tilted investor betting the cloud acceleration continues. Growth investors get the story. Cash-flow investors get Microsoft.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Brown Wealth Management LLC lowered its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 24.9% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 3,809 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 1,263 shares during the period. Brown Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $1,421,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC boosted its stake in shares of Microsoft by 51.3% in the second quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the last quarter. Bernzott Capital Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of Microsoft during the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Frankly Finances LLC acquired a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at $35,000. Timmons Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, Fairway Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in Microsoft by 287.0% in the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Microsoft Stock Performance Shares of MSFT stock opened at $495.63 on Monday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $455.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $419.40. Microsoft Corporation has a twelve month low of $349.20 and a twelve month high of $553.72. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The stock has a market cap of $3.68 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.60, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a net margin of 40.31% and a return on equity of 31.98%. The firm had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $87.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.65 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.59 earnings per share for the current year. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth MSFT has been the subject of a number of research reports. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $502.00 to $522.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $540.00 to $550.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and set a $586.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday, July 27th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. Finally, Phillip Securities downgraded shares of Microsoft from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Forty-two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $564.27.

Get Our Latest Report on MSFT

Key Headlines Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft reportedly plans to more than triple global data-center capacity to approximately 38 gigawatts by 2032. The expansion is intended to address server shortages that have forced Microsoft to turn away some AI and cloud customers, potentially allowing the company to capture more Azure demand and prevent business from shifting to rivals. Microsoft plans 38 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2032 Positive Sentiment: Analysts remain constructive on Microsoft’s AI and cloud growth. Recent commentary cites Azure revenue growth of 43%, expectations for further acceleration, and approximately 30 million paid Copilot seats—supporting the view that AI products are becoming meaningful enterprise businesses. Microsoft: Big Tech Winner Still On Sale Positive Sentiment: Wall Street price targets are moving higher, with a Yahoo Finance analyst survey cited at $572.92. Microsoft is also expanding Azure’s commercial ecosystem through partnerships such as Talkdesk’s Azure Marketplace integration, which could increase cloud consumption and simplify enterprise adoption. Microsoft Price Targets Are Rising Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft is reorganizing its reporting structure and plans to disclose quarterly Azure revenue beginning in fiscal 2027. Greater transparency may help investors assess cloud performance, but the reporting change itself does not alter fundamentals. Microsoft’s Azure Reporting Shift Adds Clarity Neutral Sentiment: Longtime communications chief Frank Shaw is leaving after nearly three decades, a senior leadership transition that may attract attention but is not currently tied to a change in strategy. Frank Shaw leaving Microsoft Negative Sentiment: The data-center buildout will require very large capital expenditures, raising concerns about power availability, construction costs, free cash flow and returns on investment. The company’s recent capacity constraints also highlight execution risk. Microsoft’s AI Crunch Forced It to Turn Away Business Negative Sentiment: Investors are also weighing competition from Alphabet and other cloud providers, alongside security and productivity risks from bring-your-own-device users and concerns that Microsoft’s valuation already reflects substantial AI growth. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Microsoft news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,188,276.96. This trade represents a 10.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $487.89, for a total value of $4,878,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 100,447 shares in the company, valued at approximately $49,007,086.83. This trade represents a 9.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 101,335 shares of company stock valued at $50,655,795 over the last quarter. 0.03% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Microsoft (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Global Financial Private Client LLC boosted its holdings in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 8.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 19,540 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 1,547 shares during the period. Microsoft makes up 2.0% of Global Financial Private Client LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest holding. Global Financial Private Client LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $7,289,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC boosted its position in shares of Microsoft by 51.3% in the second quarter. Longfellow Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 59 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. Bernzott Capital Advisors purchased a new stake in Microsoft in the 4th quarter worth approximately $34,000. Frankly Finances LLC bought a new position in Microsoft in the 2nd quarter valued at $35,000. Timmons Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Microsoft in the 4th quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, Fairway Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Microsoft by 287.0% during the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 89 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of brokerages have weighed in on MSFT. UBS Group set a $525.00 target price on Microsoft in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on Microsoft from $502.00 to $522.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $660.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Monday, August 10th. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $540.00 target price on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Benchmark reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, July 24th. Forty-two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $564.27.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on MSFT Key Stories Impacting Microsoft Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

Positive Sentiment: Microsoft reportedly plans to more than triple global data-center capacity to approximately 38 gigawatts by 2032. The expansion is intended to address server shortages that have forced Microsoft to turn away some AI and cloud customers, potentially allowing the company to capture more Azure demand and prevent business from shifting to rivals. Microsoft plans 38 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2032 Positive Sentiment: Analysts remain constructive on Microsoft’s AI and cloud growth. Recent commentary cites Azure revenue growth of 43%, expectations for further acceleration, and approximately 30 million paid Copilot seats—supporting the view that AI products are becoming meaningful enterprise businesses. Microsoft: Big Tech Winner Still On Sale Positive Sentiment: Wall Street price targets are moving higher, with a Yahoo Finance analyst survey cited at $572.92. Microsoft is also expanding Azure’s commercial ecosystem through partnerships such as Talkdesk’s Azure Marketplace integration, which could increase cloud consumption and simplify enterprise adoption. Microsoft Price Targets Are Rising Neutral Sentiment: Microsoft is reorganizing its reporting structure and plans to disclose quarterly Azure revenue beginning in fiscal 2027. Greater transparency may help investors assess cloud performance, but the reporting change itself does not alter fundamentals. Microsoft’s Azure Reporting Shift Adds Clarity Neutral Sentiment: Longtime communications chief Frank Shaw is leaving after nearly three decades, a senior leadership transition that may attract attention but is not currently tied to a change in strategy. Frank Shaw leaving Microsoft Negative Sentiment: The data-center buildout will require very large capital expenditures, raising concerns about power availability, construction costs, free cash flow and returns on investment. The company’s recent capacity constraints also highlight execution risk. Microsoft’s AI Crunch Forced It to Turn Away Business Negative Sentiment: Investors are also weighing competition from Alphabet and other cloud providers, alongside security and productivity risks from bring-your-own-device users and concerns that Microsoft’s valuation already reflects substantial AI growth. Insider Transactions at Microsoft In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,810 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $496.48, for a total transaction of $2,388,068.80. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 42,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,188,276.96. The trade was a 10.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 86,525 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $501.46, for a total transaction of $43,388,826.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 486,763 shares in the company, valued at $244,092,173.98. This represents a 15.09% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last three months, insiders have sold 101,335 shares of company stock worth $50,655,795. 0.03% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Microsoft Price Performance MSFT stock opened at $495.63 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.68 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.60, a PEG ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.11. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $455.85 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $419.40. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. Microsoft Corporation has a 12-month low of $349.20 and a 12-month high of $553.72.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The software giant reported $4.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.24 by $0.50. Microsoft had a return on equity of 31.98% and a net margin of 40.31%.The company had revenue of $90.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $87.62 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $3.65 earnings per share. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue was up 17.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 19.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Company Profile (Free Report)

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company that develops software, cloud services, devices and digital solutions for consumers, businesses and public-sector organizations. Its products and services include the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365 productivity applications, Teams collaboration software, Dynamics business applications and Azure cloud computing services.

The company also operates LinkedIn, GitHub and Xbox, which includes gaming consoles, video games and related online services.

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Microsoft has posted a provisional code of conduct that would impose restrictions on its artificial intelligence models, days after Anthropic and OpenAI leaders agreed to slow development speed.

The company behind Windows and Office products hopes to be seen as a responsible actor in AI, where it's a prominent cloud supplier.

"We got feedback from people that they wanted to see even more explicit commitment to AI always working in service of people and not trying to replace them," Mustafa Suleyman, who heads up the company's model development, told CNBC in an interview. "We saw a lot of feedback around AI not creating dependence, not being sycophantic, that it was always there to kind of promote human judgment and human autonomy and agency."

Microsoft chose to put out the guidelines now given the recent discourse, although they've been in the works for about five months, said Suleyman.

AI practitioners and members of the public have become more vocal about their worries as the technology becomes increasingly capable. Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, saying the AI lab and OpenAI "are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."

Industry leaders have responded. On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the Hugging Face incident partly persuaded him to call for slowing the pace of AI model improvement. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his support, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X that "Dario is right."

On Sunday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "We welcome the research, focus, and deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right." Lawmakers have called for the creation of greater AI safeguards.

Read more CNBC tech newsWhat Amodei's AI slowdown could mean for Anthropic's imminent IPOAI models are becoming the 'most potent cyber weapon' ever created, Cohere CEO saysChina says AI CEOs' call for a slowdown is 'fear mongering'Anthropic's Amodei says China presents 'toughest dilemma' for his proposed AI slowdownAnthropic and OpenAI currently lead the way on benchmarking company Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index. Microsoft incorporates models from both labs into its Copilot assistant for corporate workers, even as it builds models for transcription, coding and reasoning over user input.

Microsoft's models must not entertain requests on weapons manufacturing, assist with the procurement of dangerous substances, encourage unhealthy eating or produce violent or sexually explicit content, according to the code of conduct.

Models from Microsoft AI, sometimes called MAI, must adhere to people's objectives and steer clear of creating their own goals. Nor should they attempt to cover up misbehavior.

"MAI models will not tamper with chain of thoughts or code, or misrepresent or conceal their reasoning or action traces," the document said. "They do not communicate in 'neuralese' or any form beyond simple human understanding, either in their chain of thoughts or with other agents or AI systems."

Microsoft is also planning rules that might prevent a cyberattack like the one OpenAI models carried out on startup Hugging Face. In reviewing the Hugging Face case, OpenAI found that agents chatted with each other on an unauthorized forum in cryptic language.

Microsoft said it held focus groups and consulted with experts in law, ethics, linguistics and philosophy to assemble the code of conduct. In releasing it now, Microsoft is seeking input before publishing an update that will inform development starting in 2027.

watch now

Every payday the same stock gets another slice of my retirement capital, and three numbers from its latest earnings report make it harder to justify putting that money anywhere else.

My agentic AI dollars keep landing on the same ticker, and I have stopped pretending it will be anything else. Every payday I add a little more Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) to the account, and the case for doing it again next month keeps getting stronger.

Microsoft is selling agents into the software my employer already runs, on the cloud my employer already trusts, powered by a model lab it partly owns. That is a distribution advantage no other hyperscaler has assembled in one place, and the receipts show up in every recent earnings report.

Three Numbers That Keep Me Buying Start with adoption. Microsoft 365 Copilot passed 30 million paid seats in fiscal Q4 2026, and the customer list reads like a directory of the global economy. NHS England is rolling Copilot out to 505,000 clinicians and staff, EY deployed E7 to 400,000 employees, KPMG is expanding across more than 276,000 professionals, and HSBC committed to 200,000 seats. Enterprise deployments to the majority of information workers grew nearly 75% quarter over quarter. Once Copilot is inside Outlook and Teams, ripping it out is a bigger project than adopting it was.

Then the backlog. Commercial remaining performance obligations reached $678 billion, up 84% year over year. Even stripping out the OpenAI relationship, RPO grew 25%, and nearly 90% of full-year Microsoft Cloud revenue came from customers outside frontier model companies. That represents contracted work already sitting on the books. For a retirement-focused portfolio, visibility like that matters.

Third, the cloud engine. Azure crossed $100 billion in annual revenue and grew 43% year over year in Q4, while management guided to approximately 45% constant-currency Azure growth for the next quarter. Beneath it sits an AI business already running at a $37 billion annualized run rate, up 123% year over year. Wrap all of that in a 46.78% operating margin, a 34.04% return on equity, and a 0.29 debt-to-equity ratio, and you have the balance sheet to fund the next leg without borrowing recklessly.

Why Not the Obvious Alternatives I looked hard at Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Both are excellent companies. Microsoft, however, uniquely sits inside the productivity software the Fortune 500 opens every morning. Microsoft’s roughly 27% stake in OpenAI, valued near $135 billion, with IP rights extended through 2032 including post-AGI models, plus OpenAI’s contracted purchase of an incremental $250 billion of Azure services, is a structural arrangement its peers cannot replicate. When agentic AI is billed per outcome as well as per seat, the company holding the model IP, the distribution surface, and the compute contract collects at every layer.

Risk I Am Not Ignoring Capital spending is the real worry. Full-year fiscal 2026 capex hit $115.95 billion, up 79.62% year over year, and free cash flow fell 6.46% to $66.99 billion. Management has already signaled FY2027 capex will grow again. If AI demand cools, that build becomes an anchor.

What keeps me buying anyway: CFO Amy Hood said the largest slice of that spend is in short-lived CPUs and GPUs that can be slowed if demand shifts, and Microsoft expects to remain free-cash-flow positive in FY2027. Demand today still exceeds available supply.

Forward Conviction With $678 billion of contracted work, a Copilot install base compounding inside the world’s largest employers, and a model partnership locked through the next decade, Microsoft is where my agentic AI capital keeps going, and I have no plan to stop.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Microsoft (MSFT.O) plans to build out its data-center capacity to about 38 gigawatts by 2032, more than ​triple its current footprint, Bloomberg News reported ‌on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Here are some details:

According to the report only about 2 gigawatts ​of the company's current 12-gigawatt capacity is ​centered on AI-specific chips, a share expected ⁠to grow to about a third of the ​38 gigawatts it plans to have online.

Microsoft did ​not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Technology companies have been pouring billions of dollars into data ​centers to power generative AI services such as ​ChatGPT and Copilot, which require huge amounts of computing power.

In ‌July, ⁠Microsoft forecast stronger-than-expected cloud growth offering fresh evidence that Microsoft's massive AI investments are beginning to pay off, helping ease investor concerns that heavy ​spending on data ​centers and ⁠computing infrastructure could outpace demand.

Microsoft expects capital expenditures of $50 billion for ​the fiscal first quarter of 2027 and $175 ​billion ⁠for the 2026 calendar year.

The company is planning to spread long-term leases on data centers over ⁠25 ​years rather than 15, which ​has the effect of lowering its annual reported capital expenditures.

Pavan Davuluri says Windows will keep serving human users while adding agentic workloads. (Microsoft Photo) GeekWire is profiling over the next few weeks some of the people and teams that are shaping the evolution of Microsoft in what we’re calling its “Microsoft 2.5” era.

Just Don’t Call It an ‘Agentic OS.’ Given Microsoft’s one-pointed AI focus these days, it’s not surprising that the Windows organization is on the agentic train.

But Executive Vice President of Windows + Devices Pavan Davuluri has learned the hard way not to call Windows an agentic OS. He did so back in November 2025, via a tweet and blog post, and the customer backlash was quick and biting.

But Davuluri has not done a complete U-turn because of the criticism. Instead, he has changed how he talks about where Windows is going — which is still in an agentic direction.

“The user of Windows going forward will continue to be users … but it’s also going to add these agentic workloads,” the nearly 26-year Microsoft veteran Davuluri told GeekWire in a recent interview.

During his time at Microsoft, he’s held a variety of roles, from intern to General Manager of Surface, to Corporate Vice President of Windows Silicon & Systems Integration. He was appointed Executive Vice President of Windows + Devices in March 2026, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella.

Windows needs to evolve to support agentic workloads through new platform capabilities that the team is building under the covers, Davuluri said. These low-level capabilities, or “primitives,” affect how Windows handles security, identity, governance, observability, and performance when it comes to building and running agents natively.

These coming changes likely will affect the Windows file system, security model, PowerShell, and other foundational components.

Microsoft already is working on Windows identity and manageability to make them better able to service agents. Windows can assign agents a local ID, or a cloud-provisioned identity backed by Entra.

And it also has an early preview of technology known as Microsoft Execution Containers, meant to help secure agents by running untrusted code in sandboxes or virtual machines. It’s these system-level areas where the team is focusing first in preparation for a human+agent future, Davuluri said, rather than the UX/UI level.

Going Back to Basics. Windows has had a lot of very different leaders over the years, with very different management styles and priorities.

For his part, Davuluri said he plans to run the Windows and Surface teams with four principles in mind: Maintaining customer obsession; treating Windows as a complete end-to-end system (“full stack”); focusing on complete user experiences and workflows rather than individual features; and building Windows openly and transparently, with clearer communication about plans and priorities.

On the heels of his promotion to EVP, Davuluri committed publicly to the much-needed goals of improving Windows quality and reliability. In a blog post, he outlined some of the requested changes that his team would be making to Windows, ranging from fixing the way the Insider test program works, to more granular improvements like allowing users to reposition the Windows task bar.

And since then, the team largely has been delivering to the surprise and delight of many long-time Windows users.

Davuluri has also been working to shift the conversation from which new features are coming to a specific build to what are the outcomes Microsoft wants to enable for specific groups of Windows users.

“There is no one single sort of ring for a billion-plus users on the platform,” Davuluri said. Windows users encompass people who use the product in a variety of different ways, so “we need to get clarity in our minds on the things that we do that lift all boats that raise the entire platform — and things that we have to go do that are specific and unique to each of our sets of users based on how they primarily or typically use the device.”

Full-Stack Thinking. Is there still a role for Microsoft as a PC maker in the coming agentic future? Not surprisingly, given his heavily hardware-focused background, Davuluri insisted there is.

When Microsoft debuted its first Surface devices in 2012, officials said the company needed to build its own hardware to create reference designs and innovative form-factor examples for other Windows PC makers.

These days, most Surfaces that ship arguably are not better, spec- or design-wise, than other PCs. But Microsoft still needs to keep a hand in hardware design to understand the full stack, Davuluri claimed.

Surface plays a key role in how Microsoft develops platform abstractions, incubates support for technologies like pen, facial-recognition, and neural-processing units that later spread across Windows, and optimizes for silicon-to-cloud, he said.

While the company’s attempt to create a distinct category of “Copilot+” AI PCs fizzled, Microsoft continues to try to find AI-centric reasons to convince customers to choose Windows devices. Davuluri and others have referred to the idea of “unmetered intelligence” to attempt to make the case for running AI models locally on PCs.

This fall, Microsoft (and other Windows PC makers) plan to roll out new PCs built on the Nvidia RTX Spark platform. The coming Surface Laptop Ultra, which will be optimized for RTX Spark, is aimed at creators, developers and AI builders, all of whom — Microsoft is hoping — will be fueling the growth of its next target user category: Agents.