Analysts Have Mixed Ratings On Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Ambev SA (ABEV) - Financial Mercury

Keeping an eye on the figures — Cropped image of a businessman's hands working on a calculator

The shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been pegged with a rating of Buy by BofA/Merrill in its latest research note that was published on October 25th, 2018. The research company has also assigned a $140 price target. BofA/Merrill wasn’t the only research firm that published a report of Microsoft Corporation, with other equities research analysts also giving their opinion on the stock. BofA/Merrill advised investors in its research note published on October 22nd, 2018, to Buy the MSFT stock while also putting a $135 price target. The stock had earned Outperform rating from Wedbush when it published its report on October 19th, 2018. That day the Wedbush set price target on the stock to $140. The stock was given Outperform rating by Macquarie in its report released on October 12th, 2018. Griffin Securities was of a view that MSFT is Buy in its latest report on July 20th, 2018 while giving it a price target of $124. BMO Capital Markets thinks that MSFT is worth Outperform rating. This was contained in the firm’s report on July 20th, 2018 in which the stock’s price target was also moved to $125.

Amongst the analysts that rated the stock, 1 have recommended investors to sell it, 1 believe it has the potential for further growth, thus rating it as Hold while 19 advised investors to purchase the stock. The consensus currently stands at a Hold while its average price target is $125.15. The price of the stock the last time has raised by 30.12% from its Week high price while it is raised higher than its 52-Week low price. A look at the stock’s other technical shows that its 14-day RSI now stands at 52.02.

The shares of the company added by 0.45% during the trading session on Wednesday, reaching a low of $109.04 while ending the day at $109.08. During the trading session, a total of 36.36 million shares were traded which represents a -2.32% decline from the average session volume which is 35.54M shares. MSFT had ended its last session trading at 108.59. Microsoft Corporation currently has a market cap of $872.23B, while its P/E ratio stands at 26.05, while its P/E earnings growth sits at 7.59, with a beta of 1.26. Microsoft Corporation debt-to-equity ratio currently stands at 0.94, while its quick ratio hovers at 2.90. MSFT 52-week low price stands at $83.83 while its 52-week high price is $116.18.

The company in its last quarterly report recorded $1.14 earnings per share which is above the $0.96 predicted by most analysts. The Microsoft Corporation generated $29,084.00 million in revenue during the last quarter, which is slightly higher than the $27,903.70 million predicted by analysts. In the second quarter last year, the firm recorded $1.13 earnings per share. Compared to the same quarter last year, the firm’s revenue was up by 0.88%. Microsoft Corporation has the potential to record 4.19 EPS for the current fiscal year, according to equities analysts.

Investment analysts at JP Morgan published a research note on October 25th, 2018 where it informed investors and clients that Ambev S.A. (NYSE:ABEV) is now rated as Underweight. BofA/Merrill also rated ABEV as Reiterated on October 22nd, 2018, with its price target of $135 suggesting that ABEV could surge by 19.96% from its current share price. Even though the stock has been trading at $4.02/share, analysts expect it to surge higher by 1.74% to reach $5.11/share. It started the day trading at $4.16 and traded between $4.07 and $4.09 throughout the trading session.

A look at its technical shows that ABEV’s 50-day SMA is 4.34 while its 200-day SMA stands at 5.27. The stock has a high of $7.43 for the year while the low is $3.86. The company’s P/E ratio currently sits at 23.24, while the P/B ratio is 4.14. The company’s average trading volume currently stands at 28.76M shares, which means that the short-interest ratio is just 0.65 days. Over the past seven days, the company moved, with its shift of -4.22%. Looking further, the stock has dropped -8.30% over the past 90 days while it lost -18.20% over the last six months.

The change in the stock’s fortunes has led to several institutional investors altering their holdings of the stock. Vontobel Asset Management Inc bought more ABEV shares, increasing its portfolio by +2.79% during the last quarter. This move now sees Vontobel Asset Management Inc purchasing 4,853,367 shares in the last quarter, thus it now holds 178,796,626 shares of ABEV, with a total valuation of $763,461,593. Harding Loevner LP meanwhile bought more ABEV shares in the recently filed quarter, changing its stake to $371,780,655 worth of shares. Lazard Asset Management LLC followed the path by decreasing its ABEV portfolio by -0.31% in the quarter. This means that Lazard Asset Management LLC sold -247,090 shares in the last quarter and now controls 79,819,932 shares of the ABEV stock, with the valuation hitting $340,831,110.

Similarly, BlackRock Fund Advisors increased its Ambev S.A. shares by +30.59% during the recently filed quarter. After buying 9,012,936 shares in the last quarter, the firm now controls 38,479,432 shares of Ambev S.A. which are valued at $164,307,175. In the same vein, JPMorgan Investment Management I increased its Ambev S.A. shares by during the most recent reported quarter. The firm bought 311,990 shares during the quarter which increased its stakes to 38,200,610 shares and is now valued at $163,116,605. Following these latest developments, around 0.04% of Ambev S.A. stocks are owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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