Shares of Microsoft Corp. MSFT edged up 0.2% in premarket trading Wednesday, after prolific Wedbush analyst Dan Ives raised his price target to $315 from $290, as his research suggests overall cloud deal flow and momentum has been positive for the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. Ives reiterated the outperform rating he’s had on the stock for at least the past three years. The stock’s gain comes after it fell 2.3% on Tuesday to lead the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s DJIA decliners. “Clearly Microsoft’s stock has been on a tear so far in 2023 as we believe investors are starting to slowly appreciate that still less than 50% of the workloads have moved to the cloud and Redmond remains in an enviable position to gain share in its enterprise backyard against AWS in this cloud arms race over the next 12 to 18 months,” Ives wrote in a note to clients. The stock has run up 17.9% year to date through Tuesday, while the Dow has edged up 1.6%. “We also believe Redmond is just starting to hit its next gear of growth with ChatGPT and AI [artificial intelligence] also adding a new layer of growth to the MSFT story over the coming years,” Ives added.
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