Microsoft stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
May 21st, 2019
5
Microsoft Corporation develops, licenses, and supports software products, services, and devices worldwide. The company's Productivity and Business Processes segment offers Office 365 commercial products and services for businesses, including Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and related Client Access Licenses (CALs); Office 365 consumer services, such as Skype, Outlook.
Should I buy Microsoft stock?
Make a decision about when to buy or sell stocks is one of the hardest parts of being a trader or investor. Following a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.None of our preferred buy setups matches with Microsoft stock situation right now, hence this is not a suitable entry point.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Microsoft stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are published by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we collected 15 ratings published for MSFT stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for MSFT stock, with 14 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-5-6 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-25 | UBS Group | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-4-25 | Raymond James | Strong-Buy | Strong-Buy |
| 2019-4-25 | Piper Jaffray Companies | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-4-25 | Oppenheimer | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-4-25 | Morgan Stanley | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-4-25 | KeyCorp | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-4-25 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-25 | Deutsche Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-25 | Barclays | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-4-25 | Bank of America | Buy | Buy |
| 2019-4-24 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-24 | Credit Suisse Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-18 | Goldman Sachs Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-17 | KeyCorp | n/a | Buy |
Microsoft stock analysis
Daily outlook
Microsoft shares inched 0.54% to $126.90 today.
Microsoft shares inched 0.54% to $126.90 today. Since last February when MSFT stock price broke up the SMA200d line, it gained $24.93 (24.45%). On March, SMA50d and SMA100d crossed up triggering a rise of 15.26%. On Apr/25, MSFT hit new all time highs, pushing higher previous ATH of $125.39 recorded on Apr/24. New ATHs are usual entry points for many trading setups as there aren't higher resistences.
Weekly outlook
The tech giant declined an unpleasant -0.91% this week. Late April MSFT rocketed a great 5.02% in just one week.
In a weekly time frame, the Redmond company stock is drawing an uptrend with rising tops and bottoms. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top, MSFT might consolidate in a flat-base, waiting to break out over or down under . Not so far away is the last price record Microsoft marked late April. Early February MSFT price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides.
Microsoft stock price history
Microsoft stock went public on March 13th, 1986 with a price of $0.061. Since then, MSFT stock grew a 211,400.00%, with an average of 6,406.10% per year. If you had invested $1,000 in Microsoft stock in 1986, it would worth $2,114,000.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Microsoft stock historical price chart
MSFT stock reached all-time highs on Apr 25th with a price of $130.89.
Microsoft stock price target is $142.80
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. You should not follow the analysts' MSFT stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. We found 15 price predictions for the Redmond company stock posted in the last 30 days:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-5-6 | Credit Suisse Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $145.00 | - |
| 2019-4-25 | UBS Group | Set Price Target | $125.00 | $150.00 | 20% |
| 2019-4-25 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $142.00 | $149.00 | 4.9% |
| 2019-4-25 | Piper Jaffray Companies | Reiterates | $130.00 | $140.00 | 7.7% |
| 2019-4-25 | Oppenheimer | Raises Target | $127.00 | $145.00 | 14.2% |
| 2019-4-25 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $140.00 | $145.00 | 3.6% |
| 2019-4-25 | KeyCorp | Raises Target | $141.00 | $143.00 | 1.4% |
| 2019-4-25 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | Set Price Target | n/a | $145.00 | - |
| 2019-4-25 | Deutsche Bank | Raises Target | $130.00 | $145.00 | 11.5% |
| 2019-4-25 | Barclays | Raises Target | $132.00 | $152.00 | 15.2% |
| 2019-4-25 | Bank of America | Raises Target | $150.00 | $155.00 | 3.3% |
| 2019-4-24 | Goldman Sachs Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $131.00 | - |
| 2019-4-24 | Credit Suisse Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $125.00 | - |
| 2019-4-18 | Goldman Sachs Group | Set Price Target | n/a | $131.00 | - |
| 2019-4-17 | KeyCorp | Reiterates | n/a | $141.00 | - |
| (in average) | $135.20 | $142.80 | 6.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
On January, Microsoft was in line with the expectations of the experts and reported an EPS of $1.10 per share. As soon as we get its posted EPS from the earnings report, we will extend this review.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.86 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-26 | 0.72 | 0.84 | 16.7% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-01-31 | 0.87 | 0.96 | 10.3% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-26 | 0.85 | 0.95 | 11.8% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-19 | 1.07 | 1.13 | 5.6% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-24 | 0.96 | 1.14 | 18.8% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-30 | 1.09 | 1.1 | 0.9% |
| 2019-Q1 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Microsoft annual sales skyrocketed a super good 22.69% to $110,360.00 million USD from $89,950.00 marked in 2017. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, however, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) eased a -8.56% to 15.02%. Microsoft presents anual results in June, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, Microsoft TTM sales up to December 2018 were $118,459.00 and earnings $33,541.00 M USD. When comparing this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem the tech giant business evolution since June 2018: Annual revenues up to December, compared to lastest yearly report, soared a very good 7.34%. Regarding profit margin, Microsoft boosted 13.30% to 15.02%| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $77,650 M | - | $21,860 M28.2% | - |
| 2014 | $86,730 M | 11.69% | $22,070 M25.4% | 0.96% |
| 2015 | $93,580 M | 7.90% | $12,193 M13.0% | -44.75% |
| 2016 | $91,154 M | -2.59% | $20,539 M22.5% | 68.45% |
| 2017 | $89,950 M | -1.32% | $21,204 M23.6% | 3.24% |
| 2018 | $110,360 M | 22.69% | $16,571 M15.0% | -21.85% |
| TTM | $118,459 M | 7.34% | $33,541 M28.3% | 102.41% |
Quarterly financial results
Microsoft posted $32,471.00 M in revenues for 2018-Q4, a 11.65% up compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $8,420.00 M with a profit margin of 25.93%. Profit margin depreciated a -4.41% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 30.34%. When comparing revenues to same quarter last year, Microsoft sales marked an amazing growth and boosted a 12.29%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $23,180 M | - | $6,510 M28.1% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $24,430 M | 5.39% | $6,580 M26.9% | 1.08% |
| 2017-Q4 | $28,918 M | 18.37% | $-6,302 M-21.8% | -195.78% |
| 2018-Q1 | $26,819 M | -7.26% | $7,424 M27.7% | -217.80% |
| 2018-Q2 | $30,085 M | 12.18% | $8,873 M29.5% | 19.52% |
| 2018-Q3 | $29,084 M | -3.33% | $8,824 M30.3% | -0.55% |
| 2018-Q4 | $32,471 M | 11.65% | $8,420 M25.9% | -4.58% |
| 2019-Q1 | $30,571 M | -5.85% | $8,809 M28.8% | 4.62% |
Microsoft ownership
When you are planning to invest in shares of a stock, it's always worth to check its ownership structure.Microsoft shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 1.41% of all shares.
In case of Microsoft stock, 74.70% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for MSFT stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to Microsoft:
| MSFT | AAPL | CSCO | GOOGL | HPQ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $972.1 B | $842.2 B | $246.4 B | $342.8 B | $29.0 B |
| Total shares | 7,660.0 M | 4,600.0 M | 4,400.0 M | 299.4 M | 1,530.0 M |
| Float shares | 7,560.0 M | 4,340.0 M | 4,400.0 M | 602.8 M | 1,540.0 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 74.7% | 61.0% | 77.3% | 81.0% | 83.9% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 1.4% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Microsoft summary
| Tuesday, May 21st, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $127.43 |
| Close | $126.90 |
| Day range | $126.58 - $127.53 |
| Previous close | $126.22 |
| Session gain | 0.54% |
| Average true range | $2.82 |
| 50d mov avg | $121.87 |
| 100d mov avg | $113.80 |
| 200d mov avg | $110.61 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
Microsoft performance
To better understand Microsoft performance you must compare its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. For Microsoft, the benchmark is made against Apple, Cisco Systems, Alphabet, HP, International Business Machines, Oracle, Red Hat and .| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSFTMicrosoft | 14.78% | 24.11% | 31.11% |
| AAPLApple | 6.26% | 7.13% | -1.43% |
| CSCOCisco Systems | 12.49% | 27.53% | 33.23% |
| GOOGLAlphabet | 2.52% | 11.12% | 5.59% |
| HPQHP | -19.46% | -14.44% | -11.07% |
| IBMInternational Bus... | -1.82% | 18.03% | -1.42% |
| ORCLOracle | 3.67% | 12.18% | 17.15% |
| RHTRed Hat | 1.80% | 6.27% | 12.74% |
| SAP | 18.75% | 27.37% | 12.80% |
Microsoft competitors
One check before trading any stock is to have a look a list of its competitors, in this case for Microsoft. We chose 8 companies as Microsoft competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- Apple (AAPL)
- Cisco Systems (CSCO)
- Alphabet (GOOGL)
- HP (HPQ)
- International Business Machines (IBM)
- Oracle (ORCL)
- Red Hat (RHT)
- (SAP)
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