Microsoft Eyes Best Day in Three Months as Software Growth Accelerates
MSFT sits 58% above its 52-week low of $349.2.
Summary
Microsoft is set for its best trading day in more than three months, up more than 4% pre-market at $551.62, after fiscal Q1 revenue of $92.3B (+19%) and adjusted EPS of $4.89 beat expectations. Azure grew 48% to $33.17B and Microsoft Cloud rose 30% to $63.9B, while the commercial backlog hit $677B, up 73%. Free cash flow of $18.6B came in roughly $10B above expectations even with $45.2B of quarterly capex. Gene Munster flagged the part that matters for the software debate: Microsoft 365 commercial cloud growth accelerated to 17% in September from 14% in June, evidence AI is not yet cannibalizing the core franchise. He still expects AI to become a software headwind, with timing around a year out. The company guided December-quarter Azure growth to 49%-50%, so the next check on this move is whether that holds.
At the time of this announcement, MSFT was trading at $550.67 on NASDAQ in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $3.9T. The 52-week trading range was $349.20 to $553.72. This news item was assessed with positive market sentiment and an importance score of 7 out of 10. Source: Benzinga.