2. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 279
Microsoft shares recently fell after the company reported its latest quarterly results. Analysts believe most of the revenue beat came from PC segment, while investors were paying more attention to AI and Azure. Azure’s 34% growth met expectations, though guidance for next quarter fell short, projecting between 31% and 32% growth—1 percentage point below forecasts. This dip is attributed to delays in data center capacity from third-party providers, though Azure’s consumption trends remained steady.
Investors hoping for a rebound in IT spending were likely disappointed, as stable Azure consumption suggests no significant uptick in the second half of the year. In addition, the lower-than-expected Q2 guidance underscored tempered growth expectations.
AI services, however, contributed a robust 12 points to Azure’s growth, a steady continuation from the previous quarter. Microsoft’s management confirmed strong demand for AI services, although supply constraints are limiting further expansion. Microsoft anticipates AI-related revenues, including M365 Copilot and Azure AI, could reach $10 billion annually by next quarter—making it one of the fastest-growing segments in the company’s history.
Malcolm Ethridge, Capital Area Planning Group managing partner, while talking to CNBC in a latest program, explained why he’s bullish on MSFT and other big tech stocks.
Considering we don’t know exactly where we are in that Gartner Hype Cycle—have we reached that trough of disillusionment? We really don’t know. I think that leaves a lot of opportunities for positives, even if it’s not in the MAG 7, hyperscalers, megacap tech, or whatever other name we use to describe them.
If we just consider the fact that names like Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon, and Alphabet have been investing billions of dollars over the last few years into generating large language models that can create technology off the backside of them, we have yet to even really understand what the true value of those is. So, I think there’s a lot of intrinsic value still trapped inside each of these companies that owns one of those large language models.
DA Davidson recently downgraded the stock, with analyst Gil Luria saying the company’s advantages in the cloud and code generation sectors have diminished, making it difficult for Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) to maintain its previous performance. He highlighted that Amazon Web Services is now nearly matching Azure in cloud growth, while Google Cloud is also gaining momentum. Luria downgraded Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) from Buy to Neutral, maintaining a $475 price target. He pointed out that Amazon and Google have made significant strides in integrating custom silicon into their data centers, putting Microsoft at a disadvantage. This reliance on NVIDIA (NVDA) for technology means Microsoft is effectively transferring wealth from its shareholders to NVIDIA’s, according to Luria.
Following a year of margin expansion, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) is now projecting a decline in operating margins due to increased data center capital expenditures rising from 12% to 21% of revenue. This increase outpaces that of Amazon and Google, largely due to Microsoft’s dependence on NVIDIA. Luria said that if Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) continues to overinvest at the current rate, margins could drop by at least 1 percentage point cumulatively, potentially necessitating layoffs of around 10,000 employees each year to maintain margins. The analyst also thinks Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) has lost much of its edge with GitHub Copilot, as Amazon and GitLab (GTLB) have caught up in capabilities.
The concerns voiced by the analyst are not unfounded. Microsoft is also losing its edge in open-source models as enterprises shift toward cost-effective, transparent open-source solutions like Meta’s Llama 3.1.
Generation Investment Management Global Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Generative AI’s hunger for power has increased disproportionately with its intelligence. According to one estimate, OpenAI’s GPT-4 required 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity to train, much more than the 1.3 GWh needed for GPT-3.3 And then AI requires even more power when it is put to use (so called ‘inference’). Some of the latest trends worry us. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) appears to be slipping in its ESG goals, with its greenhouse gas emissions rising again last year, as it invests in becoming a big player in AI. It is struggling in particular to curb its Scope 3 emissions in the capital goods category – nowhere more so than in the activity associated with the construction of data centres: both the embedded carbon in construction materials like steel and cement, as well as the emissions from the manufacturing of hardware components such as semiconductors, servers and racks. Google’s emissions have risen by close to 50% in the past five years.
We feel it is worth dwelling on Microsoft for a few moments, since we suspect you will be hearing a lot more about the relationship between AI and sustainability in the coming months. The bottom line is that we continue to see Microsoft as a sustainability leader. In the case of Scope 2 emissions, the company covers 100% of its electricity use with purchases of renewable energy. Crucially, though, the majority of this green energy is directly sourced via power purchase agreements, which bring new renewable capacity to the grid. Microsoft is also committed to operating 24/7 on renewable power by 2030, a policy that will help bring energy storage onto the grid as well…” (Click here to read the full text)
