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Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Acquired by Ewa LLC
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Ewa LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 49.9% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 15,415 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,132 shares during the period. Microsoft accounts for approximately 2.4% of Ewa LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 8th biggest position. Ewa LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $7,668,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in MSFT. WFA Asset Management Corp lifted its stake in Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after acquiring an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. lifted its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after acquiring an additional 2,138 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. lifted its stake in Microsoft by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Microsoft by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In
Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on MSFT shares. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, July 28th. Loop Capital increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $550.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $640.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Friday, October 3rd. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $540.00 to $637.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $500.00 to $650.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Microsoft has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $618.97.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Microsoft
Microsoft Price Performance
MSFT stock opened at $517.66 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.35, a current ratio of 1.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Microsoft Corporation has a 12 month low of $344.79 and a 12 month high of $555.45. The firm has a market cap of $3.85 trillion, a P/E ratio of 37.95, a P/E/G ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.03. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $511.49 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $478.38.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.35 by $0.30. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.15% and a return on equity of 32.44%. The firm had revenue of $76.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $73.79 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.95 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 18.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Microsoft has set its Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 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 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 20th will be issued a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 20th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.83. Microsoft’s payout ratio is 24.34%.
Insider Activity
In related news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 149,205 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $504.78, for a total transaction of $75,315,699.90. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 790,852 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $399,206,272.56. The trade was a 15.87% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $527.32, for a total transaction of $2,557,502.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 39,111 shares in the company, valued at $20,624,012.52. This trade represents a 11.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.
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Microsoft Corporation $MSFT Shares Acquired by Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG
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Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG grew its position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 922,524 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 33,382 shares during the quarter. Microsoft comprises 9.8% of Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG’s holdings, making the stock its largest position. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $457,119,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC raised its holdings in Microsoft by 564,387.1% in the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 90,549,369 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $45,040,162,000 after acquiring an additional 90,533,328 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Microsoft in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $18,733,827,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Microsoft by 40,290.4% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 46,695,303 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $17,528,950,000 after buying an additional 46,579,693 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in Microsoft by 16.1% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 83,787,746 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $35,316,535,000 after buying an additional 11,600,470 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Microsoft by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 691,386,214 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $259,539,471,000 after purchasing an additional 7,314,509 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 71.13% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets
MSFT has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Thursday. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Microsoft in a research note on Wednesday. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $650.00 target price (up from $600.00) on shares of Microsoft in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Melius Research upped their price target on shares of Microsoft from $595.00 to $625.00 in a report on Thursday, September 25th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Microsoft from $585.00 to $640.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $618.47.
View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Microsoft
Microsoft Stock Performance
MSFT stock opened at $522.40 on Friday. Microsoft Corporation has a 1 year low of $344.79 and a 1 year high of $555.45. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $513.39 and its two-hundred day moving average is $470.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.88 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.30, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.03.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.35 by $0.30. The firm had revenue of $76.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $73.79 billion. Microsoft had a return on equity of 32.44% and a net margin of 36.15%.Microsoft’s revenue was up 18.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.95 earnings per share. Microsoft has set its Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.
Microsoft Increases Dividend
The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 20th will be paid a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 20th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. This is an increase from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.83. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.34%.
Insider Activity
In other Microsoft news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 149,205 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $504.78, for a total transaction of $75,315,699.90. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 790,852 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $399,206,272.56. The trade was a 15.87% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,850 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $527.32, for a total value of $2,557,502.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 39,111 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,624,012.52. This trade represents a 11.03% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.
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Well Done LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in Microsoft Corporation $MSFT
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Well Done LLC lifted its stake in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 8.9% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 9,911 shares of the software giant’s stock after acquiring an additional 814 shares during the quarter. Microsoft accounts for about 0.9% of Well Done LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 27th largest position. Well Done LLC’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $4,930,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MSFT. WFA Asset Management Corp increased its holdings in Microsoft by 27.0% in the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 1,016 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $427,000 after buying an additional 216 shares during the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. increased its holdings in 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 during the last quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 410.4% in the third quarter. Discipline Wealth Solutions LLC now owns 2,659 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,144,000 after buying an additional 2,138 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. increased its holdings in Microsoft by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Group Ltd. now owns 2,374 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,000,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eagle Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Microsoft by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Capital Management LLC now owns 23,097 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $9,735,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 71.13% of the company’s stock.
Microsoft Stock Down 0.9%
MSFT stock opened at $523.98 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.89 trillion, a P/E ratio of 38.41, a PEG ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 1.03. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $513.38 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $469.08. Microsoft Corporation has a one year low of $344.79 and a one year high of $555.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.35.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The software giant reported $3.65 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.35 by $0.30. Microsoft had a net margin of 36.15% and a return on equity of 32.44%. The company had revenue of $76.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $73.79 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.95 EPS. Microsoft’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.1% on a year-over-year basis. Microsoft has set its Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Microsoft Corporation will post 13.08 EPS for the current year.
Microsoft Increases Dividend
The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 20th will be paid a $0.91 dividend. This is a boost from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.83. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 20th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Microsoft’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.34%.
Insider Transactions at Microsoft
In other news, EVP Takeshi Numoto sold 4,850 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $527.32, for a total value of $2,557,502.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 39,111 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,624,012.52. This represents a 11.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Satya Nadella sold 149,205 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $504.78, for a total transaction of $75,315,699.90. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 790,852 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $399,206,272.56. This represents a 15.87% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.03% of the company’s stock.
Analyst Ratings Changes
Several equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $640.00 price objective on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, October 3rd. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on Microsoft from $600.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Citigroup raised their price objective on Microsoft from $605.00 to $613.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd. Melius Research raised their price objective on Microsoft from $595.00 to $625.00 in a report on Thursday, September 25th. Finally, Westpark Capital reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Microsoft in a report on Thursday, July 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $618.47.
Read Our Latest Research Report on Microsoft
Microsoft Company Profile
Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.
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Stock investors fear ‘no-landing’ economy could spell trouble. What’s next?.
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While the U.S. stock market has been pricing in a “soft-landing” scenario for the economy, a blowout January jobs report, relatively strong corporate earnings, and Federal Reserve Jerome Powell’s comments during the past week could point to the possibility of “no landing,” where the economy is resilient while inflation stays on target.
Such a scenario could still be positive for U.S. stocks, as long as inflation remains steady, according to Richard Flax, chief investment officer at Moneyfarm. However, if inflation reaccelerates, the Fed may be hesitant to cut its policy interest rate much, which could spell trouble, Flax said in a call.
What the past week tells us
Investors have just gone through the busiest week so far this year for economic data and corporate earnings reports, with stocks ending at or near their record highs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
finished the week with its nineth record close of 2024, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500 index
SPX
scored its seventh record close this year on Friday, while the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
is about 2.7% lower from its peak.The Fed kept its policy interest rate unchanged in the range of 5.25% to 5.5% at its Wednesday meeting, as expected. However, in the subsequent press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell threw cold water on market expectations that the central bank may start cutting its key interest rate in March, and underscored that they want “greater confidence” in disinflation.
Roger Ferguson, former Fed vice chairman, said Powell introduced “a new kind of risk, the risk of no landing.”
In that scenario, inflation will stop falling, while the economy is strong, Ferguson said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. However, Ferguson said he doesn’t think it is the likely outcome.
Traders were pricing in a 20.5% likelihood on Friday that the Fed will cut its interest rates in its March meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool and that’s down from over 46% chance a week ago. The likelihood that the Fed will kick off its rate cutting program in May stood at 58.6% on Friday.
The stronger-than-expected January jobs data released on Friday further eliminates the chance of a rate cut in March, said Flax.
The U.S. economy added a whopping 353,000 new jobs in January while economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 185,000 increase in new jobs. Hourly wages rose a sharp 0.6% in January, the biggest increase in almost two years.
The past week has also been heavy with earnings reports, as several tech giants including Microsoft
MSFT,
+1.84% ,
Apple
AAPL,
-0.54% ,
Meta
META,
+20.32% ,
and Amazon
AMZN,
+7.87%
reported their financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023.Among the 220 S&P 500 companies that have reported their earnings so far, 68% have beaten estimates, with their earnings exceeding the expectation by a median of 7%, analysts at Fundstrat wrote in a Friday note.
While the reported earnings by big tech companies have been “okay,” the guidance was not, said José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
What has been driving the tech stocks’ rally since last year was mostly the prospect of sales from artificial intelligence products, but tech companies are not able to monetize the trend yet, Torres said in a phone interview.
Adding to the headwinds is a comeback of concerns around regional banks.
On Thursday, New York Community Bancorp Inc.’s stock triggered the steepest drop in regional-bank stocks since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023. New York Community Bancorp on Wednesday posted a surprise loss and signaled challenges in the commercial real estate sector with troubled loans.
Meanwhile, the Fed’s bank term funding program, which was launched in March last year to bolster the capacity of the banking system, will expire on March 11.
If the Fed could start cutting its key interest rate in March, it would be “sort of like the ambulance that was going to pick regional banks up and save them,” said Torres. “Now the ambulance is coming in May at the earliest, I think that we’re in a particularly risky period from now to May,” Torres said.
What should investors do
Investors should go risk-off before May, according to Torres. “Last year, goods and commodities helped a lot on the disinflationary front. This year for disinflation to continue, we’re going to need services to start contributing to that. Then we’re going to need to see an increase in the unemployment rate,” Torres said.
He said he prefers U.S. Treasurys with a tenor of four years or shorter, as the long-dated ones may be susceptible to risks around the fiscal deficit and government borrowing. For stocks, he prefers the healthcare, utilities, consumer staples and energy sectors, he said.
Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, is more optimistic. The slowdown in inflation and the relatively strong economic data and earnings “don’t really paint a picture for a risk-off scenario,” he said. “The setup for risk assets still leans towards the bullish expectation,” Buchanan added.
In the week ahead, investors will be watching the ISM services sector data on Monday, the U.S. trade deficit on Wednesday and weekly initial jobless benefit claims numbers on Thursday. Several Fed officials will speak as well, potentially providing more clues on the possible trajectory of rate cuts.
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Russian hacking group accessed Microsoft executive emails, company says
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Microsoft Corp. said Friday a Russian hacking group illegally gained access to some of its top executives’ email accounts.
In a regulatory filing, the software giant
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+1.22%
said a group called Nobelium was responsible for the attack.In late November, the group accessed “a legacy non-production test tenant account and [gained] a foothold, and then used the account’s permissions to access a very small percentage of Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of our senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions, and exfiltrated some emails and attached documents,” Microsoft’s Security Response Center wrote in a blog post.
Microsoft’s senior leadership team, which includes Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and President Brad Smith, routinely meets with Chief Executive Satya Nadella.
The company reported that there were no signs Nobelium had obtained customer data, production systems or proprietary source code.
A Microsoft spokesperson provided this comment late Friday: “Our security team recently detected an attack on our corporate systems attributed to the Russian state-sponsored actor Midnight Blizzard. We immediately activated our response process to investigate, disrupt malicious activity, mitigate the attack, and deny the threat actor further access. The attack was not the result of a vulnerability in Microsoft products or services. To date, there is no evidence that the threat actor had any access to customer environments, production systems, source code, or AI systems. More information is available in our blog.”
Nobelium, also known as APT29 or Cozy Bear, is a shadowy hacking group that attempted to crack the systems of the U.S. Defense Department and did breach the Democratic National Committee’s systems in 2016.
Netskope Threat Labs, which tracks Nobelium, said the hacking group uses a variety of techniques to compromise accounts, including compromised Azure AD accounts to collect victim emails. “This hack underscores the importance of securing corporate email accounts, even those in non-production and test environments,” a Netskope spokesperson said. “Even if the email account isn’t regularly used or doesn’t contain anything sensitive, it can still be used to launch additional attacks.”
Microsoft’s disclosure comes amid new U.S. requirements to report cybersecurity incidents.
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iRobot Stock Plunges as Its Takeover by Amazon Likely Is Dead
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Amazon’s $1.4 billion deal for Roomba-maker iRobot looks set to be blocked by European Union antitrust authorities. It’s only a small setback for the e-commerce giant but it’s a reminder that regulators are still skeptical over acquisitions made by big technology companies.
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So Long, Apple and Tesla. We Built a Better Magnificent 7.
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Jan 12, 2024, 1:00 am EST
[ad_2]In this articleThe Magnificent Seven had an extraordinary year in 2023—one that will be very difficult to repeat. And there will be a new Magnificent Seven in 2024.
Continue reading this article with a Barron’s subscription.
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Why Alphabet Could Be the Best Bet Among Magnificent 7 Stocks in the New Year
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Alphabet could be the best bet among the Magnificent Seven stocks that led the market higher in 2023.
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Activision Blizzard to pay $55 million to settle California civil-rights lawsuit
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Videogame maker Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay nearly $55 million to settle a California civil-rights lawsuit brought over complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and pay disparities by women employees that helped trigger the company’s acquisition by Microsoft.
The settlement, announced by the California Civil Rights Department on Friday evening, resolves the lawsuit filed against the “Call of Duty” videogame studio by the agency in 2021 over claims that it “discriminated against women at the company, including by denying promotion opportunities and paying them less than men for doing substantially similar work,” CRD said.
The agreement, subject to court approval, will see Activision pay nearly $46 million into a settlement fund dedicated to compensating women employees and contract workers at the company, plus more than $9 million in attorneys’ fees and costs. Additionally, Activision will take steps “to help ensure fair pay and promotion practices at the company,” including retaining an independent consultant to evaluate its compensation and promotion policies.
Yet the settlement also sees CRD withdraw its initial claims alleging a culture of widespread, systemic workplace sexual harassment at Activision, according to a copy of the agreement provided to MarketWatch. The document notes that the department is filing an amended complaint that removes the sexual-harassment allegations against the company and focuses on the gender-based pay and promotion claims.
CRD made no note of its prior sexual-harassment claims against Activision in its announcement Friday. A spokesperson for the department said the statement “largely speaks for itself with respect to the historic nature of this more than $50 million settlement agreement, which will bring direct relief and compensation to women who were harmed by the company’s discriminatory practices.
Representatives for Activision declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the settlement Friday.
The California agency’s complaint was one of several high-profile investigations by both state and federal regulators in recent years into alleged workplace misconduct at Activision and failures by its leadership to respond appropriately.
While Activision repeatedly denied the allegations, they ramped up pressure on the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company and its CEO, Bobby Kotick, and eventually led to a $68.7 billion takeover bid by Microsoft
MSFT,
+1.31%
in January 2022. The acquisition closed this October after receiving approval by U.K. and E.U. antitrust regulators, though the U.S. Federal Trade Commission continues to challenge the deal in court. Kotick is expected to leave the company, which he led for more than three decades, at the end of this year.The settlement would be the second-largest ever for the California Civil Rights Department, according to the Journal, after its $100 million agreement with another Los Angeles-area videogame developer, Riot Games, to resolve gender-discrimination allegations in 2021. The agency had initially sought a much-larger settlement with Activision, the publication reported, citing how the state had estimated the company’s liability at nearly $1 billion to some 2,500 employees with potential claims.
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MSFT Stock Price | Microsoft Corp. Stock Quote (U.S.: Nasdaq) | MarketWatch
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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. The Intelligent Cloud segment consists of Server products and cloud services, including Azure and other cloud services, SQL Server, Windows Server, Visual Studio, System Center, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs), and Nuance and GitHub, Enterprise Services, including Enterprise Support Services, Microsoft Consulting Services, and Nuance professional services. The More Personal Computing segment consists of Windows, including Windows OEM licensing and other non-volume licensing of the Windows operating system, Windows Commercial, comprising volume licensing of the Windows operating system, Windows cloud services, and other Windows commercial offerings, patent licensing, and Windows Internet of Things, Devices, including Surface and PC accessories, Gaming, including Xbox hardware and Xbox content and services, comprising digital transactions, Xbox Game Pass and other subscriptions, video games, third-party video game royalties, cloud services, and advertising, Search and news advertising. The company was founded by Paul Gardner Allen and William Henry Gates, III in 1975 and is headquartered in Redmond, WA.
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Steve Gelsi
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November's rally just erased two months of Fed tightening, economist says
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Financial conditions are now looser than in September, says economist
Financial conditions in the U.S. are looser than in September, says economist.
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The feel-good tone gripping markets in the home stretch of 2023 may not be what the Federal Reserve had penciled in for the holidays.
The stock market in December, once again, has been knocking on the door of record levels, driven by optimism about easing inflation and potential Fed rate cuts next year.
But while the prospect of double-digit equity gains this year would be a reprieve for investors after a brutal 2022, the latest rally also points to looser financial conditions.
Ultimately, the risk of looser financial conditions is that they could backfire, particularly if they rub against the Fed’s own goal of keeping credit restrictive until inflation has been decisively tamed.
Read: Inflation is falling but interest rates will be higher for longer. Way longer.
Specifically, the November rally for the S&P 500 index
SPX
can be traced to the 10-year Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
dropping to 4.1% on Thursday from a 16-year peak of 5% in October.Falling 10-year Treasury yields from a 5% peak in October coincides with a sharp rally in the S&P 500 at the tail end of 2023.
Oxford Economics
The Fed only exerts direct control over short-term rates, but 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields
BX:TMUBMUSD30Y
are important because they are a peg for pricing auto loans, corporate debt and mortgages.That makes long-term rates matter a lot to investors in stocks, bonds and other assets, since higher rates can lead to rising defaults, but also can crimp corporate earnings, growth and the U.S. economy.
Michael Pearce, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, thinks the November rally may put Fed officials in a difficult spot ahead of next week’s Dec. 12 to 13 Federal Open Market Committee meeting — the eighth and final policy gathering of 2023.
“The decline in yields and surge in equity prices more than fully unwinds the tightening in conditions seen since the September FOMC meeting,” Pearce said in a Thursday client note.
The Fed next week isn’t expected to raise rates, but instead opt to keep its benchmark rate steady at a 22-year high in a 5.25% to 5.5% range, which was set in July. The hope is that higher rates will keep bringing inflation down to the central bank’s 2% annual target.
Ahead of the Fed’s July meeting, stocks were extending a spring rally into summer, largely driven by shares of six meg-cap technology companies and AI optimism.
Rates in September were kept unchanged, but central bankers also drove home a “higher for longer” message at that meeting, by penciling in only two rate cuts in 2024, instead of four earlier. That spooked markets and triggered a string of monthly losses in stocks.
Pearce said he expects the Fed next week to “push back against the idea that rate cuts could come onto the agenda anytime soon,” but also to “err on the side of leaving rates high for too long.”
That might mean the first rate cut comes in September, he said, later than market odds of a 52.8% chance of the first cut in March, as reflected by Thursday by the CME FedWatch Tool.
Stocks were higher Thursday, poised to snap a three-session drop. A day earlier, the S&P 500 closed 5.2% off its record high set nearly two years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
was 2% away from its record close and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP
was almost 12% below its November 2021 record, according to Dow Jones Market Data.Related: What investors can expect in 2024 after a 2-year battle with the bond market
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Why Sam Altman is a no-brainer for Time’s ‘Person of the Year’
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Nothing has changed our lives more this year than the advances made in artificial intelligence — and they have the potential to alter our lives in even more dramatic ways down the road.
So it’s a no-brainer that Sam Altman, co-founder and recently returned chief executive of the once-little-known OpenAI, should be named “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine when the selection is announced Wednesday.
Altman has already cracked Time’s shortlist, joining candidates from varied backgrounds, including world leaders like Xi Jinping and entertainment phenomenon Taylor Swift. The selection ultimately comes down to an “individual or group who most shaped the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.”
But Time has often given “agents of change” its yearly honor — just look at 2021 winner Elon Musk — and Altman certainly fits that bill.
No other innovation in the past year has had an impact in such disparate realms. OpenAI publicly launched its ChatGPT chatbot late last year, and as the technology grew viral in 2023, it upended the stock market, Silicon Valley and companies that wouldn’t normally be classified as technology businesses. The ensuing product development and surge in generative AI investment revitalized a tech industry that had sunk into the doldrums amid a pandemic hangover.
Admittedly, it will take time for companies to realize the true financial benefits of AI: Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
-2.68%
is among the few to generate serious money from the frenzy so far. But market researcher IDC predicted that global spending on AI, including software, hardware and services for AI-centric systems will reach $154 billion this year, up 27% from a year ago. That total could zoom above $300 billion by 2026.Also read: One year after its launch, ChatGPT has succeeded in igniting a new era in tech
And AI isn’t only impacting the corporate world. The technology is already affecting our daily lives, and it will have even deeper effects going forward. Chatbots are getting smarter on websites, facilitating better customer service. They’re starting to alter the workplace as well, spitting out mostly coherent marketing copy, research and even, gasp, news articles — albeit with plenty of errors.
At first, ChatGPT seemed like a fun way to kill time or get homework help, but the chatbot and its ilk will seriously alter the working world, helping to eliminate perhaps millions of jobs. Morgan Stanley recently predicted that more than 40% of occupations will be affected by generative AI in the next three years.
Altman himself has been the face of OpenAI in the past year. He’s talked up the technology, but he also appeared at congressional hearings in May to discuss potential regulation of AI, testifying that “if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.” His recent firing and quick rehiring by OpenAI and its small, nonprofit board late last month fueled a veritable media storm before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.
Time chooses its persons of the year for their impact, not because they’re saints. And Altman’s own story is not without controversy. The recent brouhaha over his leadership of OpenAI is believed to have been caused by a deep schism over the ethics of AI development. The board seemingly wanted more guardrails and precautions, and feared that rushed development could irrevocably doom mankind.
Read in the Wall Street Journal: How effective altruism split Silicon Valley and fueled the blowup at OpenAI
Altman, who also wooed Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
-1.43%
to become an investor in OpenAI, emerged the victor in the upheaval with his own company’s altruistic board. Had Altman truly been fired from OpenAI, Microsoft was planning to hire him, and nearly every employee at OpenAI was ready to quit and follow him there. While OpenAI faces plenty of competition, including from Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOG,
-2.02% GOOGL,
-1.96%
Google, Altman should continue to be the face of AI development, for good and for bad, even as he has advocated industry regulation.The debut and influence of ChatGPT and follow-on AI products are having the biggest impact on tech development since the invention of the iPhone. Altman is at the center of it and leading the charge. Whether he can keep the lid on Pandora’s Box or not depends on many factors, but he and the company he leads are clearly driving a new tech movement that affects us all, whether we like it or not.
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OpenAI Has a New Board. Who’s On, Who’s Not, and What It Means for AI Safety.
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Nov 22, 2023, 10:36 am EST
[ad_2]Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI but power at the artificial-intelligence start-up is still set to be held by its board. The members who fired Altman are largely out and their replacements suggest the new board will be less inclined to slow or block the development of AI technology.
Continue reading this article with a Barron’s subscription.
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Sam Altman to Join Microsoft Following OpenAI Ouster
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Updated Nov. 20, 2023 6:34 am ET
SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft said it is hiring Sam Altman to helm a new advanced artificial-intelligence research team, after his bid to return to OpenAI fell apart Sunday with the board that fired him declining to agree to the proposed terms of his reinstatement.
Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella posted on X (formerly Twitter) late Sunday that Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder who resigned Friday in protest over Altman’s ouster, will lead its team alongside unspecified colleagues. Nadella said Microsoft was committed to its partnership with OpenAI and that it would move quickly to provide Altman and Brockman with “the resources needed for their success.”
Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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Sam Altman Is Fired as OpenAI CEO
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[ad_2]OpenAI announced Friday afternoon that CEO Sam Altman has departed the company, saying the executive “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”
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Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia—What Tech Stocks Hedge Funds Are Buying and Selling
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[ad_2]It’s filing season for a string of major hedge funds, and big tech names like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia were among the most-traded equities in the third quarter.
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Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Shares Purchased by BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc.
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BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Microsoft Co. (NASDAQ:MSFT – Free Report) by 5.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,697 shares of the software giant’s stock after buying an additional 471 shares during the period. Microsoft comprises 2.6% of BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest position. BlackDiamond Wealth Management Inc.’s holdings in Microsoft were worth $3,052,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Good Life Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 0.6% during the second quarter. Good Life Advisors LLC now owns 54,021 shares of the software giant’s stock worth $18,396,000 after buying an additional 311 shares in the last quarter. Carr Financial Group Corp increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 4.0% in the second quarter. Carr Financial Group Corp now owns 10,761 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $3,665,000 after purchasing an additional 417 shares in the last quarter. Planning Center Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 24.4% in the second quarter. Planning Center Inc. now owns 4,849 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $1,651,000 after purchasing an additional 950 shares in the last quarter. Nissay Asset Management Corp Japan ADV increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 6.6% in the first quarter. Nissay Asset Management Corp Japan ADV now owns 1,518,749 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $437,855,000 after purchasing an additional 94,563 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Trivant Custom Portfolio Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Microsoft by 1.2% in the second quarter. Trivant Custom Portfolio Group LLC now owns 19,877 shares of the software giant’s stock valued at $6,769,000 after purchasing an additional 229 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.20% of the company’s stock.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
MSFT has been the subject of a number of research reports. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $400.00 to $425.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 25th. Guggenheim raised shares of Microsoft from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, September 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $385.00 price target on shares of Microsoft in a report on Friday, September 22nd. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on shares of Microsoft from $398.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 20th. Finally, Fundamental Research set a $298.10 price objective on shares of Microsoft and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirty-five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $384.34.
View Our Latest Research Report on Microsoft
Microsoft Stock Up 2.5 %
Shares of MSFT stock opened at $369.67 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 1.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. Microsoft Co. has a 1 year low of $219.35 and a 1 year high of $370.10. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $332.31 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $329.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.75 trillion, a P/E ratio of 35.79, a PEG ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.88.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The software giant reported $2.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.65 by $0.34. Microsoft had a net margin of 35.31% and a return on equity of 38.79%. The firm had revenue of $56.52 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $54.52 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.35 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Microsoft Co. will post 11.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Microsoft Increases Dividend
The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 15th. This is a positive change from Microsoft’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.68. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.81%. Microsoft’s payout ratio is currently 26.33%.
Insider Transactions at Microsoft
In other news, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 26,815 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.37, for a total transaction of $8,778,426.55. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 198,373 shares in the company, valued at approximately $64,941,369.01. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Satya Nadella sold 38,234 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $328.43, for a total transaction of $12,557,192.62. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 800,668 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $262,963,391.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Kathleen T. Hogan sold 26,815 shares of Microsoft stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $327.37, for a total transaction of $8,778,426.55. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 198,373 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,941,369.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.03% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
Microsoft Company Profile
Microsoft Corporation develops and supports software, services, devices and solutions worldwide. The Productivity and Business Processes segment offers office, exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, office 365 Security and Compliance, Microsoft viva, and Microsoft 365 copilot; and office consumer services, such as Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions, Office licensed on-premises, and other office services.
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ABMN Staff
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Microsoft stock surges toward another record close, has added about $308 billion in market cap in 11 days
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Shares of Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+2.49%
hiked up 2.4% afternoon trading Friday, toward its third record close in the past four sessions. The stock has now soared 12.6% over the past 11 sessions, in which is has gained 10 times, including a nine-day winning streak through Nov. 8 that was the longest such streak since the 9-day stretch that ended Nov. 19, 2019. During those 11 sessions, the stock has added $307.8 billion to its market capitalization. Microsoft is the second-largest component in the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.56%
with a market cap of $2.745 trillion, behind only Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+2.32%
at $2.891 trillion. The rally kicked off a couple days after Microsoft reported bumper quarterly results. Market research firm Bespoke Investment said Friday that Microsoft has joined Apple as the second individual company that has a larger market cap that the combined market caps of the companies that make up the Russell 2000 index
RUT,
+1.07%
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