Ride Out The Next Market Storm With Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT) - Financial Mercury

The shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been pegged with a rating of Buy by Mizuho in its latest research note that was published on March 14th, 2019. Mizuho 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. Nomura advised investors in its research note published on January 31st, 2019, to Buy the MSFT stock while also putting a $113 price target. The stock had earned Neutral rating from Citigroup when it published its report on January 31st, 2019. That day the Citigroup set price target on the stock to $110. The stock was given Buy rating by BofA/Merrill in its report released on October 25th, 2018, the day when the price target on the stock was placed at $140. BofA/Merrill was of a view that MSFT is Buy in its latest report on October 22nd, 2018 while giving it a price target of $135. Wedbush thinks that MSFT is worth Outperform rating. This was contained in the firm’s report on October 19th, 2018 in which the stock’s price target was also moved to $140.

Amongst the analysts that rated the stock, 1 have recommended investors to sell it, 2 believe it has the potential for further growth, thus rating it as Hold while 18 advised investors to purchase the stock. The consensus currently stands at a Hold while its average price target is $126.36. The price of the stock the last time has raised by 36.01% 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 67.80.

The shares of the company added by 0.92% during the trading session on Monday, reaching a low of $118.1 while ending the day at $119.02. During the trading session, a total of 19.83 million shares were traded which represents a 31.9% incline from the average session volume which is 29.12M shares. MSFT had ended its last session trading at 117.94. Microsoft Corporation currently has a market cap of $905.33B, while its P/E ratio stands at 27.68, while its P/E earnings growth sits at 7.64, with a beta of 1.21. Microsoft Corporation debt-to-equity ratio currently stands at 0.85, while its quick ratio hovers at 3.10. MSFT 52-week low price stands at $87.51 while its 52-week high price is $120.82.

The company in its last quarterly report recorded $1.10 earnings per share which is above the $1.09 predicted by most analysts. The Microsoft Corporation generated $32,471.00 million in revenue during the last quarter, which is slightly lower than the $32,512.20 million predicted by analysts. In the second quarter last year, the firm recorded $1.14 earnings per share. Compared to the same quarter last year, the firm’s revenue was down by -3.64%. Microsoft Corporation has the potential to record 4.30 EPS for the current fiscal year, according to equities analysts.

Investment analysts at RBC Capital Mkts published a research note on January 29th, 2019 where it informed investors and clients that Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) is now rated as Outperform. Nomura also rated AMAT as Reiterated on January 31st, 2019, with its price target of $113 suggesting that AMAT could surge by 14.99% from its current share price. Even though the stock has been trading at $39.66/share, analysts expect it to surge higher by 3.71% to reach $48.38/share. It started the day trading at $41.17 and traded between $40.21 and $41.13 throughout the trading session.

A look at its technical shows that AMAT’s 50-day SMA is 39.04 while its 200-day SMA stands at 39.38. The stock has a high of $58.40 for the year while the low is $28.79. The company’s P/E ratio currently sits at 10.24, while the P/B ratio is 4.79. At the moment, only of Applied Materials, Inc. shares were sold short. The company’s average trading volume currently stands at 11.13M shares, which means that the short-interest ratio is just 1.25 days. Over the past seven days, the company moved, with its shift of 4.39%. Looking further, the stock has raised 27.02% over the past 90 days while it gained 7.25% over the last six months.

The change in the stock’s fortunes has led to several institutional investors altering their holdings of the stock. The Vanguard Group Inc bought more AMAT shares, increasing its portfolio by +1.52% during the last quarter. This move now sees The Vanguard Group Inc purchasing 1,098,836 shares in the last quarter, thus it now holds 73,625,049 shares of AMAT, with a total valuation of $2,822,784,379. BlackRock Fund Advisors meanwhile sold more AMAT shares in the recently filed quarter, changing its stake to $1,742,543,798 worth of shares. SSgA Funds Management Inc followed the path by decreasing its AMAT portfolio by -1.48% in the quarter. This means that SSgA Funds Management Inc sold -670,069 shares in the last quarter and now controls 44,620,171 shares of the AMAT stock, with the valuation hitting $1,710,737,356.

Similarly, Columbia Management Investment Ad increased its Applied Materials, Inc. shares by +30.01% during the recently filed quarter. After buying 4,336,735 shares in the last quarter, the firm now controls 18,785,417 shares of Applied Materials, Inc. which are valued at $720,232,888. In the same vein, T Rowe Price Associates Inc decreased its Applied Materials, Inc. shares by during the most recent reported quarter. The firm sold -3,464,010 shares during the quarter which decreased its stakes to 16,956,145 shares and is now valued at $650,098,599. Following these latest developments, around 0.60% of Applied Materials, Inc. stocks are owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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