New plants prepare these techs for growth

Article Excerpt

These tech leaders are spending heavily on new plants and other facilities. While that has hurt their earnings growth, the investments set the stage for stronger growth over the next few years—and higher dividends. MICROSOFT CORP. $423 is a buy. The software giant (Nasdaq symbol MSFT; High-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio; Manufacturing sector; Shares outstanding: 7.4 billion; Market cap: $3.1 trillion; Dividend yield: 0.8%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.microsoft.com) will raise your quarterly dividend by 10.7% in December 2024, to $0.83 a share from $0.75. The annual rate of $3.32 yields 0.8%. The company also announced a new $60 billion share repurchase program. Including what remained on the old program, Microsoft can now buy back up to $67.5 billion of its stock. There are no time limits for those purchases. Meantime, Microsoft continues to benefit from strong demand for its Azure cloud computing service and artificial intelligence software tools. The company expects its annual revenue from AI products to hit $10 billion this year. In its fiscal 2025 first…