1. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 258
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) purchased LinkedIn back in 2016 for over $26 billion. LinkedIn is one of the largest and best platforms for professional networking and talent acquisition and is used by businesses of all sizes across the world. On October 25, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported earnings for the fiscal first quarter of 2023. The company reported a revenue of $50.1 billion, up 10.60% year over year. The company’s LinkedIn division reported a revenue increase of 17% year over year.
Shortly after the company’s earnings release, Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss revised his price target on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) to $307 from $325 and maintained an Overweight rating on the shares. This October, Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan adjusted his price target on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) to $265 from $275 and reiterated an Outperform rating on the shares.
At the close of Q2 2022, 258 hedge funds held stakes in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). These funds held collective stakes of $56 billion in the company. As of June 30, Fisher Asset Management is the top investor in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and has stakes of $7.36 billion in the company.
Here is what Lakehouse Capital had to say about Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its September 2022 investor letter:
“During the month, the Fund initiated a new position in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), a name that is no doubt familiar to our investors. The company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in a friend’s garage in 1975 and began dominating the operating system market with MS-DOS by the mid-1980s. The company has come a long way since then and is now widely considered the most critical and indispensable IT mega-vendor for businesses globally. In addition to its well-known Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite, the company has a broad portfolio of strategic products, including a rapidly growing public cloud business in Azure and a sizeable gaming presence.
Microsoft’s foundational products, Office365 and Windows365, are ubiquitous and highly penetrated with circa 90% and 80% market share, respectively. These solutions are deeply ingrained in commercial and personal use globally and across all industry sectors. They serve as stable, high-margin cash flow generators for Microsoft whilst they expand and invest in other growth areas of the business. One particular growth area, which is the most exciting part of Microsoft’s business in our view, is their public cloud service, Azure.
Azure has grown at a rapid clip over the past decade to cement itself as the second-largest cloud service provider globally, behind Amazon Web Services. The business benefits from strong secular tailwinds as cloud adoption continues unabated and there is considerable runway ahead – it’s currently estimated that less than 20% of global IT spend is currently in the cloud. Research indicates that 80% of enterprises use Azure and its market share has grown to 21%, up from 13% five years ago. The mission-critical nature of the product, which is similar to many of Microsoft’s other solutions, is incredibly attractive as it leads to sticky, recurring revenue streams. Something we love to see…” (Click here to read the full text)
You can also take a look at 12 Best Value Dividend Stocks To Invest In and 10 Best Undervalued Dividend Stocks To Buy.
