What to Look For in Microsoft Earnings

By Chris Lange Updated Jan 31, 1:16AM EST · Published Jan 30, 12:35PM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

What to Look For in Microsoft Earnings — © Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) is scheduled to release its fiscal second-quarter financial results after the markets close on Wednesday. Consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $1.09 in earnings per share (EPS) and $32.5 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, the tech giant said it had EPS of $0.96 on $28.92 billion in revenue.

Microsoft shares ended 2018 with an impressive gain and also broke out above their dot-com bubble highs from almost two decades ago as Satya Nadella’s move to the cloud and subscription services has been incredibly well received.

Many Wall Street analysts feel that Microsoft has become a clear number two in the public or hyper-scale cloud infrastructure market with Azure, which is the company’s cloud computing platform offering. Some have flagged Azure as a solid rival to Amazon’s AWS service, while others maintain that Microsoft is discounting Azure for large enterprises, such that Azure may be cheaper than AWS for larger users. The cloud was big in the third-quarter earnings report, which was outstanding.

[nativounit]

Excluding Wednesday’s move, Microsoft had outperformed the broad markets, with its stock up about 9% in the past 52 weeks. However, in just 2019 alone, the stock was only up 1%.

A few analysts weighed in on Microsoft ahead of the close:

KeyCorp has a Buy rating with a $125 price target.
Merrill Lynch has a Buy rating and a $140 price target.
Credit Suisse has a Buy rating with a $125 price target.
Goldman Sachs has a Buy rating with a $123 price target.
Morgan Stanley has a Buy rating and a $130 price target.
Wedbush has an Outperform rating with a $140 target.

Shares of Microsoft were last seen up about 3% at $105.90 on Wednesday, in a 52-week trading range of $83.83 to $116.18. The consensus price target is $125.70.

[recirclink id=524816]

[wallst_email_signup]

About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.