
Microsoft (MSFT) Stock Soars Following Earnings Beat
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) - Get Report stock is rising 10.39% to $53.02 in pre-market trading on Friday after the company reported yesterday afternoon fiscal 2016 first quarter financial results that surpassed estimates.
The technology company reported adjusted earnings of 67 cents per share on revenue of $21.66 billion for the quarter ended September 30, while analysts had estimated earnings of 59 cents per share on $21.03 billion.
Intelligent cloud revenue increased 8% to $5.9 billion, while productivity and business processes revenue fell 3% to $6.3 billion and more personal computing revenue dropped 17% to $9.4 billion.
Revenue from the cloud platform Azure more than doubled year-over-year as cloud-based productions gain traction.
"We think Azure can generate approximately $2 billion in operating income in fiscal 2018 ... and help propel the commercial cloud segment to $13 billion in gross profit in fiscal 2018," Bank of America/Merrill Lynch said in an analyst note.
The firm upgraded Microsoft's rating to "buy" from "neutral" and increased its price target to $63 from $46.
TheStreet's Jim Cramer, portfolio manager of the Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust portfolio, had this to say about the company in a Real Moneyarticle this morning: "Satya Nadella, the breakout CEO of Microsoft, put it best when he said that he is trying to make Microsoft's products ones that you want, not just need. He's doing it."
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates MICROSOFT CORP as a Buy with a ratings score of B-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
We rate MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT) a BUY. This is driven by a number of strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its reasonable valuation levels, expanding profit margins, solid stock price performance, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and notable return on equity. We feel its strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had sub par growth in net income.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: MSFT
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