Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Sold by Wallington Asset Management LLC

Wallington Asset Management LLC lowered its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 4.7% during the first quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 81,433 shares of the software giant’s stock after selling 4,027 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for approximately 4.0% of Wallington Asset Management LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 6th largest holding. Wallington Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $30,144,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

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

Microsoft News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Microsoft this week:

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have recently commented on MSFT shares. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Monday. Phillip Securities upgraded Microsoft to a “buy” rating and set a $485.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 13th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered Microsoft from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday. Arete Research raised their price objective on Microsoft from $730.00 to $870.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 5th. Finally, Benchmark reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $525.00 target price (up from $450.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Tuesday, April 28th. Forty analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $560.98.

Microsoft Price Performance

NASDAQ:MSFT opened at $388.84 on Wednesday. Microsoft Corporation has a 52 week low of $349.20 and a 52 week high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $404.84 and its 200 day simple moving average is $416.21. The firm has a market cap of $2.89 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.13.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The software giant reported $4.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.06 by $0.21. Microsoft had a net margin of 39.34% and a return on equity of 31.94%. The firm had revenue of $82.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $81.44 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.46 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 16.76 earnings per share for the current year.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $402.84, for a total transaction of $1,812,780.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 47,468 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,122,009.12. This represents a 8.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Judson Althoff sold 15,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $460.99, for a total value of $7,145,345.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 110,477 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,928,792.23. This trade represents a 12.30% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 23,762 shares of company stock valued at $10,508,361 over the last 90 days. 0.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Microsoft Company Profile

Microsoft Corporation is a global technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft develops, licenses and supports a broad range of software products, services and devices for consumers, enterprises and governments worldwide. Its operations span personal computing, productivity software, cloud infrastructure, enterprise applications, developer tools and gaming.

Microsoft’s product portfolio includes the Windows operating system and the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and collaboration tools (Office apps, Outlook, Teams).