Why Microsoft Stock Is Moving Higher Wednesday

Microsoft Corp MSFT shares are trading higher Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected financial results and issued an upbeat outlook. 

• Q1 Revenue: $56.52 billion beat estimates of $51.4 billion
• Q1 EPS: $2.99 beat estimates of $2.50

Productivity and Business revenue came in at $18.6 billion, up 13% year-over-year. Intelligent Cloud revenue grew 19% to $24.3 billion, and Personal Computing revenue was up 3% at $13.7 billion.

LinkedIn revenue was up 8%, Windows revenue increased 5%, and Xbox content and services revenue grew 13%. Overall, device revenue decreased 22% year-over-year. 

"Consistent execution by our sales teams and partners drove a strong start to the fiscal year," said Amy Hood, executive vice president and CFO of Microsoft.

Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella added that the company is "rapidly infusing AI across every layer of the tech stack and for every role and business process to drive productivity gains for our customers."

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On a conference call following the company's quarterly results, Microsoft guided for fiscal second-quarter revenue of $60.4 billion to $61.4 billion. Intelligent Cloud revenue is expected to be between $25.1 billion and $25.4 billion. Cost of Revenue is expected to be $19.4 billion to $19.6 billion and expenses are expected to total $15.5 billion to $15.6 billion in the second quarter. 

Following the print, Piper Sandler analyst Brent Bracelin maintained Microsoft with an Overweight rating and raised the price target from $400 to $425.

MSFT Price Action: Microsoft shares were up 4.91% at $346.80 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Microsoft.