MSFT Yahoo Finance sentiment indices place Microsoft in the top quartile for investor confidence, bolstered by strong guidance and a consistent innovation pipeline. Long-term forecasts imply continued sector leadership through 2026. “Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the world’s largest software and cloud computing company. Microsoft was traditionally known for its Windows and Office products, but over the last five years it has built a $147 billion run-rate cloud business, including its Azure cloud infrastructure service and its Office 365 and Dynamics 365 cloud-delivered applications. Shares gave back some gains from strong performance over the first half of this year. For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, Microsoft reported a strong quarter with total revenue growing 16%, in line with the Street; Microsoft Cloud up 22%; Azure up 30%; 43% operating income margins; and 36% free cash flow margins. Core Azure growth came in one point shy of expectations, however, due to a soft European market and continued constraints on AI compute capacity. In the same vein, while Microsoft reiterated its fiscal 2025 targets of double-digit top-line and operating income growth, quarterly guidance called for Azure growth to slow a bit before accelerating in the back half of the fiscal year, as capital expenditures increase, yielding an expansion of AI compute capacity. We believe this investment is a leading indicator for growth, with more than half of the spend related to durable land and data center build outs, which should monetize over the next 15-plus years. We remain confident that Microsoft is one of the best-positioned companies across the overlapping software, cloud computing, and AI landscapes, and we remain investors.” “We’ve owned Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) because it certainly is one of the most recurring revenue businesses on Earth and clearly is benefiting and is really in the catbird seat when it comes to benefiting from AI. It is using all of the technology that AI has enabled to improve its products, reduce its costs, and obviously grow substantially on the Azure side of their business. So we think Microsoft will continue to be able to add innovations and co-pilot like products to its suite, price up its product and continue to grow its unit volumes on the Microsoft 365 side. What is unbelievable is I don’t know anybody that doesn’t have Microsoft 365 or Office and yet Micr Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) osoft is growing its units and seat count at 6 to 8% a year despite the fact that almost everybody on Earth has access to it, but clearly there’s still opportunity to access individuals that are not subscribers yet. So Microsoft is growing its customer base. It’s growing its prices. It’s increasing prices over the years as it adds innovation and it is obviously clearly a huge AI beneficiary.” MSFT Yahoo Finance analyst consensus currently rates the stock as “Strong Buy,” with 32 out of 38 covering analysts maintaining buy positions. This reflects confidence in projected $250B FY2025 revenue and resilient demand in enterprise software.