After picking up; 1.3% yesterday, shares of Microsoft added 1.23% today, Friday, July 23, as Wall Street analysts raised earnings estimates ahead of the company’s July 27 earnings report.
It’s a tried and true earnings season game: No analyst wants to be on the wrong side of a strong earnings report so the days before a company is due to report earnings brings a raft of new, higher target prices.
In this case, Citigroup raised its target to $378. The stock closed at $289.67 today.
KeyBanc raised its target to $330. Bank of America moved up to $325. Cowen came in at $310.
The new targets called out Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure. Cowen analyst Nichols Yako, for example, said that consensus expectations for sales growth for Azure is around 44% to 46%. Last quarter Azure revenue climbed by 46%.
Microsoft is a member of my Jubak Picks portfolio. The shares are up 186% since I added it to the portfolio on June 14, 2018.
Full disclosure: I own shares of Microsoft in my personal portfolios.
