Microsoft gets an AI boost

Article Excerpt

MICROSOFT CORP. $295 is a buy for aggressive investors. The software giant (Nasdaq symbol MSFT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 7.5 billion; Market cap: $2.2 trillion; Price-to-sales ratio: 9.9; Dividend yield: 0.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.microsoft.com) continues to benefit from strong demand for its Azure cloud computing platform. The company’s recent $10 billion investment in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) software firm behind the ChatGPT online chatbot, is also drawing more users to its Bing search engine. Microsoft’s revenue in its fiscal 2023 third quarter, ended March 31, 2023, rose 7.1%, to $52.86 billion from $49.36 billion a year earlier. If you exclude currency rates, revenue gained 10%. That improvement is largely due to strong demand for its cloud computing services (up 19%) and business productivity software (15%). Those gains offset slower sales to consumers (down 7%). Earnings in the quarter also gained 9.4%, to $18.30 billion from $16.73 billion. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share earnings improved 10.4%,…