Microsoft rises almost 2% as BofA reiterates 'top pick' take on software giant
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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares rose almost 2% Thursday as Bank of America analyst Brad Sills reiterated his upbeat view of the software titan due to expectations for "sustained strength" across the company's key business franchises.
Sills highlighted Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure cloud business as a particular area of growth as checks with several companies are "increasingly migrating" large levels of the workloads to the Azure platform. Sills said the increased use of Azure has the potential to lead Microsoft (MSFT) to report better-than-expected revenue when the company delivers its fiscal second-quarter results on Jan. 25.
For his part, Sills estimates Microsoft (MSFT) will report $50.7 billion in revenue for the final three months of 2021.
Sills also raised what he called his "conservative" estimates for Microsoft's (MSFT) third-quarter revenue to $47.7 billion from $47.3 billion, and lifted his fourth-quarter forecast to $52 billion from $51.4 billion due to expectations of strong growth in Azure and Office 365 subscriptions.
Sills left his $365-a-share target price, and buy rating on Microsoft's (MSFT) shares unchanged, saying the company was still his "top pick".
Microsoft (MSFT) remained in the spotlight as the company shook up the videogame market earlier this week with its plans to acquire publisher Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) for almost $69 billion.