{"id":108639,"date":"2026-07-16T19:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/108639\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T19:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:41:13","slug":"whats-going-on-with-microsoft-stock-thursday-microsoft-nasdaqmsft-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/108639\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s Going on With Microsoft Stock Thursday? &#8211; Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"block core-block\">Recently, several Wall Street analysts updated their outlooks on Microsoft while maintaining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benzinga.com\/quote\/MSFT\/analyst-ratings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">bullish ratings<\/a> ahead of the company\u2019s quarterly earnings later this month.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts Update Price ForecastsEarnings In Focus<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">Microsoft is scheduled to report quarterly results on July 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">Wall Street expects earnings of $4.23 per share, up from $3.65 a year earlier. Revenue is projected to rise to $87.61 billion from $76.44 billion.<\/p>\n<p>BNP Paribas Cuts Price Forecast, Keeps Outperform<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">BNP Paribas expects Microsoft to deliver another quarter of accelerating cloud growth, forecasting Azure revenue growth of about 41%, ahead of the roughly 40% consensus estimate. It also expects stronger Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption during the seasonally stronger fourth quarter, with potential for 7 million to 8 million new paid seats.<\/p>\n<p>Revenue Growth Seen Accelerating<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">BNP Paribas expects investors to focus on three key topics during the earnings call: Copilot adoption, initial fiscal 2027 operating margin guidance and Microsoft\u2019s capital spending outlook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">The firm forecasts fiscal 2027 revenue growth of nearly 18%, above the Street\u2019s expectation of about 16.8%, driven by continued Azure momentum and expanding artificial intelligence workloads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">However, it also expects operating margins to contract modestly as depreciation expenses rise alongside Microsoft\u2019s AI infrastructure investments. <\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">BNP Paribas increased its estimate for calendar 2026 cash capital expenditures to $195 billion, citing continued component inflation, and expects even higher spending in fiscal 2027.<\/p>\n<p>AI Leadership Supports Long-Term View<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">Despite trimming its valuation, BNP Paribas said Microsoft\u2019s leadership across cloud computing, enterprise software and generative AI continues to support a constructive long-term outlook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">The firm believes Azure, Microsoft 365, GitHub, Dynamics, cybersecurity products and the company\u2019s partnership with OpenAI position Microsoft to benefit from sustained enterprise AI adoption.<\/p>\n<p>Price Action<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">MSFT Stock Price Activity: Microsoft shares were up 1.13% at $400.10 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/benzinga.com\/services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Benzinga Pro data<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block core-block\">Image via Shutterstock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, several Wall Street analysts updated their outlooks on Microsoft while maintaining bullish ratings ahead of the company\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[420,7853,8811,7910,5895,5893,7908,7909,5896,5894,7911,5892,416,320,7852,5891,5899,5902,7914,5903],"class_list":["post-108639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-microsoft","tag-azure","tag-azure-copilot","tag-category-analyst-color","tag-category-analyst-ratings","tag-category-movers","tag-category-news","tag-category-price-target","tag-category-reiteration","tag-category-tech","tag-category-top-stories","tag-category-trading-ideas","tag-cms-wordpress","tag-copilot","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-copilot","tag-pageisbzpro-bz","tag-symbol-msft","tag-tag-benzai","tag-tag-expert-ideas","tag-tag-why-its-moving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}