Source: www.investors.com --- Friday, January 29, 2016
Microsoft ( MSFT ) stock leaped on Friday as investors reacted positively to the software company’s fiscal-second-quarter earnings report out late Thursday. The Redmond, Wash.-based company easily beat Wall Street’s targets for the December quarter , thanks to its rapidly growing cloud computing business. Microsoft earned 78 cents a share on sales of $25.69 billion on a non-GAAP basis in its fiscal Q2. Earnings per share rose 11% year over year, while sales slipped 1.7%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected 71 cents a share on sales of $25.26 billion. Excluding foreign-exchange impacts, Microsoft’s earnings per share would have been up 23% and its sales up 3%. Microsoft is shifting its business from desktop software to Internet cloud computing infrastructure and applications. The transition should make Microsoft less reliant on PC buying cycles. Microsoft stock jumped 5.8% to close at 55.09 on the stock market today , not far from an all-time high of 56.85 on Dec. 29. FBR analyst Daniel Ives maintained his outperform rating on Microsoft stock and upped his price target to 63 from 60. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has navigated Microsoft into the Internet cloud faster and more successfully than its peers, Ives said in a research note Friday. Credit Suisse analyst Philip Winslow reiterated his outperform rating on Microsoft stock and raised his price target to 62.50 from 60. Microsoft’s Q2 results are evidence that its transit ...
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