JMP Securities initiated coverage on Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) with a Market Outperform rating and a price target of $550.00, according to analyst Patrick Walravens. The stock has traded down 7% year to date versus an 11% increase for the S&P 500 and 10% for the Russell 3000.
JMP cited CEO Satya Nadella's vision of AI sovereignty, noting Microsoft is building an end-to-end AI tech stack with three layers: AI agentic experiences, an agent platform, and the cloud and AI token factory.
Bloomberg reported on April 2 that Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, stated in an interview: "Certainly by 2027, the objective is to really get to state-of-the-art" regarding frontier models. The company targets a total addressable market estimated at $5.1 trillion by 2030.
Microsoft's revenue growth is expected to accelerate to 17% in fiscal year 2026 from 15% in fiscal year 2025, with operating margin expanding to 47% from 46%. The company has demonstrated 17.9% revenue growth over the last twelve months.
In other news, Piper Sandler reiterated an Overweight rating with a $540 target, citing improvements to Copilot. RBC Capital maintained an Outperform rating with a $640 target. Additionally, Anthropic's Project Glasswing identified over 10,000 high- or critical-severity software vulnerabilities in its first month.
