Big News Gains: AT&T, Sprint Corporation, Microsoft

Microsoft’s revenue was down 6.6% on a year-over-year basis.

Microsoft stock surged to near an all-time high Friday in heavy trading, a day after it posted much better-than-expected September quarter results.

Microsoft released its earnings results on Thursday.

The company delivered upbeat top- and bottom-line figures for the quarter, reporting adjusted earnings per share of $0.67, which came ahead of the $0.587 consensus figure.

Now the company Insiders own 8.58% of Microsoft Corp Company shares according to the proxy statements.

Merrill Lynch’s $63 price target is based on a multiple of 16 times its earnings FY18, plus net cash per share.

“Microsoft shares have had a tough time breaking through the $50 level on previous attempts, but we think the transitional pieces of this story are really starting to align and showcase a more innovative and focused company than previous iterations”, he said. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Microsoft from $46.00 to $51.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th.

Shares rose 5% to $50.42 in after-hours trading.

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.93 per share. The most aggressive analyst sees the stock reaching $60 within the next year while the most conservative estimate has a target of $37. The stock for the software company has been stuck in the $40 – $49 range for nearly 18 months as expectations for an earnings breakout were not met with fundamentals, thereby leading to an adjustment in EPS for FY2016 which has been cut from $2.71 to $2.55.

Out of 29 analysts covering Microsoft Corporation, 19-rate it a Buy, 11 indicate a Hold while 4 suggest a Sell. The stock has a market cap of $427.13 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.084. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 17th.

The company’s 50-day moving average is $45.15 and its 200-day moving average is $45.52. He rates Microsoft stock as overweight with a price target of 55. The Firm operates in five divisions: Devices and Consumer Licensing, D&C Hardware, D&C Other, Commercial Licensing, and Commercial Other. Its products include operating systems for personal computers, servers, phones; server applications for distributed computing environments; productivity applications; business solution applications; desktop and server management tools; software development tools; video games, and online advertising. In addition, it provides cloud-based alternatives offering customers with software, services and content on the internet by way of common computing resources located in data centers that are centralized. It offers solution support services and product and consulting.