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Microsoft CorpMSFTBUYApr 12, 2023Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jun 18, 2026. Market Open.
Not a value company, but has become a "utility" style company due large scale adoption of products. Very strong product suite with high margins. Excellent management team. 30x earnings per / share hard to justify, but strong dividend and excellent balance sheet. Would recommend holding, or buying on weakness.
Hit record high earlier today. Makes sense especially with exposure to AI space. Cloud business is growing, subscriptions keep the money flowing. Not cheap now at 33.5x, growing at 15x, 2x PEG. Forward price to sales a bit high at 11x.
In all the right spaces and doing the right things. Hold. Be careful adding, as tech did so well last year.
MSFT is expected to grow in the mid-teens on the top-line over the next few years and trades at a forward P/E of 30.9. It trades at a premium, as it shoulld. With that said, we think the bar is high for above-average share price growth at MSFT. They are very large, being scrutinized on acquisitons, not cheap and have had a strong run in the last year. We think it is a name an investor can still do fine with over the long-term, but we might not expect 'fireworks' here either.
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IBM lacks the spread of clientele like MSFT. Also, IBM has been getting rid of their hardware business, focusing more on software with AI. In terms of quality, MSFT is better (customer loyalty, Office Suite) while IBM is inferior, offering little growth. IBM isn't a big player moving forward. Among megatech, MSFT is the top.
We think investors can look at metrics such as Forward P/E, as it factors in the near-term growth prospect into the valuation, which is currently around 28.6x.
In the last five years, MSFT has been trading at as low as 22x to 34x Forward P/E. We think the current valuation is fair.
Additionally, MSFT is an interesting case, because prior to 2017, the multiple on average is around 12x to 18x.
The trading multiple has gone up significantly mainly because there was a significant change in the company’s fundamentals (change in CEO), which turns the story from a legacy software company to a high-growth tech company again.
Overall, we think MSFT’s outlook is solid.
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