As far as the market is concerned, Microsoft has had an embattled time over the past few weeks as some industry investors have begun a technology selloff of shares. At the beginning of the month technology companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft started at highs of $232.07, $1,952.76, $1,202.95, and $116.59 repspectively, but are now trending downward across the board.
Despite the apparent purge of tech stocks, analysts believe there’s at least a recovery on the way for Microsoft after it reports its quarterly earnings next week.
According to a report from Thestreet.com’s Real Money post, the industry pullback could be just the buying opportunity anyone who has followed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s track record.
Under Nadella, Microsoft has beat its early earning analysis 19 of its last 20 reports.
Furthermore, Phil Winslow, a Wells Fargo analysts penned his report explaining, “Our positive thesis remains that Microsoft can return to sustainably delivering mid-teens EPS and FCF growth as the headwinds from a declining PC market in recent years and the transition to the cloud continue to abate.”
Winslow and his firm believe the price target for Microsoft in what they expect to be an “outperform” rating after its earnings, could be upwards of $130 a share.
A more granular report of Microsoft’s potential upswing in the market comes from Credit Suisse analyst Brad Zelnick who takes into account the exponential growth of the company’s cloud revenue.
“Microsoft 365 is now a multi-billion-dollar business, Commercial Cloud annualized revenue at $29 billion is ahead of its internal $20 billion target set in 2016.”
Zelnick wasn’t all roses and chocolates for Microsoft’s performance portfolio as he does point out the company’s Edge internet browser service and Bing search engine are “areas that still require work.”
Combined with his insights into the company’s cloud investment plus its areas of opportunity, Zelnick is a little less bullish and puts Microsoft’s price target at $125, with an “outperform” rating as well.
Microsoft’s stock seemingly has a lot of headwind going into this quarter as its Office 365 service seems to be humming along, a PC market that remained relatively flat over the past few months and continual Azure partnering and purchasing from big name companies domestically and internationally.
To read more analysis on the governance of the company and how that’s planned to positively impact Microsoft’s stock check out the full post here.
