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Microsoft stock has registered an average post-earnings move of 5% over the past four quarters
Microsoft (MSFT) is scheduled to report earnings after the closing bell Wednesday, with traders anticipating its stock could climb to all-time highs.
Recent options pricing suggests traders expect Microsoft stock could move nearly 4% in either direction from Tuesday’s intraday level around $513 by the end of Friday’s trading session. A move of that scale would lift shares to a fresh record near $532 or drop them to about $494, about where they were at the start of July. The stock has added about a fifth of its value in 2025 and set multiple record highs this month.
Microsoft stock has registered an average post-earnings move of 5% over the past four quarters, falling in three of those instances. April was the exception, when shares jumped 8% the day after earnings as cloud and AI growth drove better-than-expected results.
Ahead of Wednesday’s earnings report, all 20 brokers covering Microsoft tracked by Visible Alpha have “buy” ratings for the stock. Their average price target around $580 represents a 13% premium over Monday’s closing price.
Wall Street analysts expect Microsoft’s quarterly revenue and profits to have surged year-over-year amid growing AI demand. Wedbush analysts, who recently raised their price target to $600, said the company “is just hitting its next phase of monetization on the AI front,” thanks to the adoption of Copilot, its chatbot, and its cloud-computing platform Azure.
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