Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Rating) had its price objective lowered by Wolfe Research from $280.00 to $265.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, The Fly reports. Wolfe Research currently has an outperform rating on the software giant's stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on MSFT. StockNews.com lowered Microsoft from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, January 19th. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on Microsoft from $265.00 to $247.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 9th. Fundamental Research cut their price target on Microsoft to $270.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, November 8th. Cowen cut their price target on Microsoft from $310.00 to $285.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 26th. Finally, Evercore ISI cut their price target on Microsoft from $300.00 to $280.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and twenty-eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $283.09.

Microsoft Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ MSFT opened at $248.16 on Wednesday. Microsoft has a fifty-two week low of $213.43 and a fifty-two week high of $315.95. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $241.83 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $249.46. The company has a quick ratio of 1.79, a current ratio of 1.93 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The firm has a market cap of $1.85 trillion, a PE ratio of 27.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 0.94.

Microsoft Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 9th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 16th will be issued a $0.68 dividend. This represents a $2.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.10%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 15th. Microsoft's payout ratio is 30.22%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Judson Althoff sold 24,144 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $254.27, for a total value of $6,139,094.88. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 150,047 shares in the company, valued at approximately $38,152,450.69. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.03% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Microsoft by 1.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 634,238,715 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $147,714,197,000 after purchasing an additional 6,129,708 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Microsoft by 0.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 295,509,547 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $68,824,173,000 after purchasing an additional 1,951,554 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Microsoft by 0.3% during the second quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 195,859,819 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $50,302,677,000 after purchasing an additional 556,020 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Microsoft by 1.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 54,799,110 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $14,074,064,000 after purchasing an additional 784,656 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its position in Microsoft by 0.4% during the third quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 49,440,386 shares of the software giant's stock valued at $11,514,665,000 after purchasing an additional 208,765 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.15% of the company's stock.

Microsoft Company Profile

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Microsoft Corp. engages in the development and support of software, services, devices, and solutions. It operates through the following business segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. The Productivity and Business Processes segment consists of Office Commercial (Office 365 subscriptions, the Office 365 portion of Microsoft 365 Commercial subscriptions, and Office licensed on-premises), Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Security and Compliance, and Skype for Business, Office Consumer, including Microsoft 365 Consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other Office services, LinkedIn, including Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Premium Subscriptions, Sales Solutions, and Learning Solutions, Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics 365, comprising a set of intelligent, cloud-based applications across ERP, CRM, Customer Insights, Power Apps, and Power Automate, and on-premises ERP and CRM applications.

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