Microsoft is now the US’ most valuable company, hitting $1 trillion market cap when its shares jumped as much as 5.1% on April 25th. Expectations are high for the tech sector, after the Nasdaq climbed to an intraday record on the day.
Microsoft made history as the third US company to reach this milestone, following in the footsteps of Apple which achieved this most desired honor last August, while Amazon became the 2nd to reach it in the following month. Both these companies have since dipped below $1 trillion, and the same could be expected of Microsoft eventually.
“The stock needed to hit $130.51 to reach the trillion-dollar mark for the first time. It traded as high as $131.37, though it bounced around throughout the day before closing at $129.15 for a market cap of about $990 billion, reports CNBC.
Analysts found the results positive, and most pointed to the rapid growth in Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing business. Azure’s revenue surged 73%. Microsoft’s commercial cloud business, which includes Azure, grew 41% in the quarter to $9.6 billion.
UBS wrote that the results suggested that “there’s lots more opportunity ahead”, while Evercore ISI raved that Microsoft “should remain a stock for all seasons”.
After regular trading on the day, the tech giant reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of $1.14 per share, excluding certain items, topping the $1.00 estimate of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Revenue climbed 14% to $30.6 billion, exceeding the average estimate of $29.84 billion.
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The tech earnings were kicked off by Microsoft and Facebook, with both companies surpassing expectations. Facebook saw its shares rise more than 6% on Thursday. Amazon reports after the bell, followed by Alphabet and Apple early next week.
“Microsoft is one of the best-positioned companies in tech to capitalize on the growing demand for cloud, even more than Amazon.com,” says Bloomberg Intelligence. “A dominant position in productivity applications should aid 10%-plus sales growth for at least the next two years.”
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