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On Wednesday, cloud and enterprise software giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) held its Ignite conference, which included a bunch of exciting announcements. Unsurprisingly, many centered on artificial intelligence (AI), where Microsoft is perceived to have an early lead thanks to its

Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ) stock has been leading the markets and the Magnificent Seven group higher of late, with shares recently breaking out to hit a new all-time high. Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence (AI) enthusiasm has continued to be a main driver for the enterprise software behemoth. Not only is Microsoft getting investors excited with its take on AI tech, but it also has a pretty compelling business model in place to monetize the technology over the near term. Indeed, Microsoft 365 Copilot (the firm's AI assistant) is a technology that can really pay for itself (and then some) as it helps make a broad range of users more productive at their jobs. Indeed, Copilot certainly seems like Clippy (an old-school assistant built by Microsoft) on steroids! Add Bing AI search and the firm's significant stake in OpenAI — Microsoft's stake has been speculated to be worth close to $100 billion, according to a recent Barron's article — into the equation, and it's clear that Microsoft seems to be miles ahead of rivals in this so-called AI race. As Microsoft keeps the AI ball rolling, I find it hard to be anything but bullish, even as shares become richer with every upward move. Analysts agree, giving it a Strong Buy rating. Does AI Alone Warrant the Recent Wave of Multiple Expansion? Just how much of a premium should the stock be worth? A strong case could be made for an even higher multiple, as many companies (even non-tech firms) aspire to be more like Microsoft to stay competitive in the AI age. Indeed, Microsoft has set a really high bar regarding AI. And it's a bar that few firms will be able to pass. All considered, AI alone makes Microsoft stock worth a hefty premium to its own historical averages. At writing, shares of MSFT go for 36.5 times trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) — close to the most expensive they've been in recent memory. Over the past five years, Microsoft stock has averaged a multiple closer to 32 times trailing P/E. OpenAI, the firm behind the hit large language model (LLM) ChatGPT, recently unveiled ChatGPT 4 Turbo alongside a range of incredible new features, including programmable integrations (GPTs), which allows users to tailor their very own version of ChatGPT for specific use cases. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also had a chance to take to the stage alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. With GPT-5 in the works, Microsoft's stake in OpenAI alone makes the Magnificent Seven giant more than worth an elevated multiple. Microsoft Has Growth Drivers Beyond AI It's not just AI that makes Microsoft stock one of the most compelling of the Magnificent Seven. Aside from AI, Microsoft also has other irons in the fire that could drive long-term growth and justify the stock's premium valuation. The closure of the Activision Blizzard deal could be a real boon to the firm's gaming business, Xbox, as it looks to dominate an industry that's undergone quite a bit of consolidation in recent years. And let's not forget about Microsoft's recent move into making its own custom chips. Microsoft seems to have a front-row seat to growth in gaming, a market that Grand View Research believes could experience a compound annual growth rate of 10.2% between 2022 and 2030. With Activision Blizzard's assets thrown in, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is a subscription that may stand to become the stickiest entertainment service on the planet. For now, gaming is more of a long-term growth driver for Microsoft. A far timelier needle mover could lie in the company's foray into custom chips. Indeed, it seems like everybody wants a piece of the custom chip market. The company recently pulled the curtain on two new chips during its Ignite conference: the Azure Cobalt 100 CPU and the Azure Maia 100 AI accelerator. As Microsoft in-houses its own chips, its margins could stand to receive a nice jolt over time. And if its own chips prove far more capable than that of its rivals? The stock may just be able to command a trailing P/E north of 40 times. Is MSFT Stock a Buy, According to Analysts? On TipRanks, MSFT stock comes in as a Strong Buy. Out of 31 analyst ratings, there are 30 Buys and one Hold recommendation. The  average Microsoft stock price target is $409.62, implying upside potential of 8.9%. Analyst price targets range from a low of $375.00 per share to a high of $450.00 per share. The Bottom Line on Microsoft Microsoft seems to know where the puck is headed next in today's fast-moving tech scene. As the company continues investing aggressively in its growth drivers (AI, gaming, custom chips, and the cloud), rivals will be eager to chase it down. Arguably, Microsoft has already built a huge moat to protect its top drivers. And at this pace, count me as unsurprised if Microsoft becomes the world's largest company (again) at some point over the next year. Simply put, Microsoft stock still looks like a Strong Buy, even at the new high. Disclosure 

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq managed to eke out tiny gains on Thursday while the Dow Industrial Average ended slightly lower with pressure from tech and retail bellwethers Cisco and Walmart after disappointing forecasts.

In today's video, I discuss recent updates impacting Arm Holdings (NASDAQ: ARM), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and other tech giants. Check out the short video to learn more, consider subscribing, and click the special offer link below.

The U.S. government went back to basics in arguments against Alphabet's Google on Thursday, wrapping up the evidentiary phase of a court battle in which it has accused the online search leader of breaking antitrust law with its tactics.

OpenAI, whose generative AI products initially raised fears of widespread cheating on homework, is now exploring how it can get its popular ChatGPT chatbot into classrooms, according to a senior executive.

Wall Street's main indexes fell on Thursday, dragged down by Cisco and Walmart following underwhelming forecasts, while a drop in Treasury yields cushioned some megacap stocks.

The London Stock Exchange Group on Thursday raised its mid-term growth guidance to "mid to high single" digits and said it would return a billion pounds ($1.24 billion) to shareholders in 2024 as it looks beyond the integration of data and analytics company Refinitiv.

The technology sector is back in the groove and dominating the stock market rally once again since the start of November. The renewed confidence is driven by hopes that the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hiking campaign might be n

Investors in Microsoft Corporation (Symbol: MSFT) saw new options begin trading today, for the July 2024 expiration. One of the key inputs that goes into the price an option buyer is willing to pay, is the time value, so with 246 days until expiration the newly trading contrac

A week before Thanksgiving, we have ourselves a full plate — of economic data this morning. Jobless Claims, Import and Export Prices, Philly Fed survey and more household-name retailers reporting Q3 earnings ahead of the opening b

The U.S. government highlighted key parts of its antitrust arguments against Alphabet's Google on Thursday, wrapping up the evidentiary phase of a court battle in which it has accused the tech company of breaking the law with its tactics used to dominate online search.

Looking at units outstanding versus one week prior within the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, the biggest outflow was seen in the Invesco QQQ, where 9,450,000 units were destroyed, or a 1.7% decrease week over week. Among the largest underlying components of QQQ, in m

A week before Thanksgiving, we have ourselves a full plate — of economic data this morning. Jobless Claims, Import and Export Prices, Philly Fed survey and more household-name retailers reporting Q3 earnings ahead of the opening b

Disney DIS recently announced its partnership with Dapper Labs to unveil a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platform known as Disney Pinnacle. This platform is designed to tokenize DIS' timeless animated characters, along with figures fro

ValueAct Capital Management, a well-known activist hedge fund, has discreetly acquired stakes in three major corporations: Disney (NYSE: DIS), Recruit Holdings (OTCMKTS: RCRRF), and Expedia Group(NASDAQ: EXPE). Renowned for its behind-the-scenes activism, ValueAct is positioning

We're in the homestretch of 2023. The end of the year is in sight, a new year is coming up, and it's a perfect time for investors to start reviewing their portfolio composition. In other words, it's time for some stock picking. Stock picking has long been thought of as an art, but the savvy investor knows that there is also plenty of science to it. And for those willing to embrace the science, TipRanks has the Smart Score, an AI-driven data sorting tool, based on sophisticated natural language algorithms. The tool gathers the reams of data thrown up by the stock markets – the transactions, the stock movements, the traders' moves, all of it. This data is sorted and rated according to a set of factors known to match with future share outperformance – and distills the results into a single-digit 'Smart Score' that points toward each stock's likely way forward. Recently, two blue-chip stock stalwarts have turned up on the Smart Score's 'Perfect 10' list, the shares that ticked all the right marks. These are major names in Big Tech, and they have certainly earned the attention they've gotten. Both are among the handful of trillion-dollar-plus companies, and both have made a huge impact on the ways we live and work. Here they are, in focus, for a closer look, based on data from the TipRanks platform and the analyst commentaries. Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT) We'll start with Microsoft, the iconic computer and technology company. Microsoft is the leader in the world of PC operating systems, an instantly recognizable iconic brand, and, with its $2.75 trillion market cap, the world's second-largest publicly traded company. The firm has been involved in personal computing for nearly 50 years and has its hands in everything from word processing software to web browsers to AI. On that last note, the company is a major investor in OpenAI, the creator of the popular ChatGPT bot; Microsoft's investment in OpenAI over the past several years has totaled more than $13 billion. The company can afford investments on that scale. Microsoft's successes, its dominance of the markets in OS and office software, have pushed it to the top tier of the business world. It brought in $211.9 billion in total revenue for its last fiscal year, 2023, which ended on June 30; that total was up 7% year-over-year. Looking forward, Microsoft is investing heavily in AI technology. The company is improving its Bing search engine, in a direct challenge to Google, using the ChatGPT bot as a generative AI brain to give Bing natural language capability. In addition, Microsoft is incorporating AI technology into both its Edge web browser and its Azure business cloud platform. The company's Intelligent Cloud business is already a $24 billion segment. Late last month, we saw financial results for Microsoft's fiscal 1Q24. The release showed that the company had top-line revenues of $56.5 billion, a year-over-year gain of 13%, and beat the forecast by almost $2 billion. At the bottom line, Microsoft posted $2.99 in diluted EPS, beating the estimates by 34 cents per share and growing 27% year-over-year. Cloud computing services helped to drive these positive results; as noted, the Intelligent Cloud brought in over $24 billion of the total revenue, gaining 19% year-over-year. Among the bulls is 5-star analyst Kirk Materne, of Evercore ISI. Materne writes, looking at Microsoft’s recent quarterly results, “While the focus now shifts to the drivers behind these results, including whether or not we are past the Azure ‘bottom’ or whether there were one-time items that resulted in the beat, we believe that the narrative gets even stronger into the rest of FY24 as some optical headwinds reverse and comps soften, and Microsoft’s position in the enterprise market continues to get stronger as customers look to consolidate spending. As we look out into CY24, we believe that AI will be a tailwind as Microsoft starts implementing its M365 Copilot monetization strategy, as will continued traction in Azure and the integration of ATVI into Microsoft’s gaming business.” Extrapolating from the current position, Materne gives MSFT shares an Outperform (i.e. Buy) rating, with a $400 price target to point toward a one-year upside of 8%. (To watch Materne’s track record, click here) Big tech stocks always pick up plenty of analyst attention, and Microsoft has 31 recent reviews on file. These feature a decidedly lopsided 30 to 1 Buy/Hold split, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The stock is selling for $369.67, and its $408.76 average price target implies a 10.5% gain in the next 12 months. (See Microsoft’s stock forecast ) Amazon ( AMZN) The second stock we’ll look at is Amazon, another instantly recognizable tech name with an equally iconic brand. Not as old as Microsoft, Amazon got its start in the ‘90s as an online bookstore. The firm is a survivor of the dot-com bubble, and in the early 2000s began expanding its services from books to include essentially the whole of the online retail world. Shoppers can find almost anything they want via Amazon, which has become the world’s largest online retailer. Across all of its domains, Amazon moved a total gross merchandise value of $693 billion last year. That’s not just big business; it’s huge – and it’s pushed Amazon into the number-four spot among Wall Street’s largest companies. The firm has a market cap of just over $1.5 trillion and had an operating cash flow of $71.7 billion for the 12 months ending this past September 30. Amazon’s scale and success have given it a firm foundation for expanding its operations away from pure retail. The company offers its customers a vast array of online services, including online TV streaming and cloud computing, as well as audiobooks, home automation, and even groceries. The company has made use of AI tech to streamline and improve its services. The Amazon.com website is one of the internet’s most trafficked sites, with more than 2 billion visits per month. That scope is reflected in Amazon’s public financial results. The company’s most recent quarterly release, for 3Q23, showed revenues of $143.1 billion, a total that was up 13% from the prior year and was more than $1.5 billion better than had been expected. The revenue result reflected a set of solid retail gains growth, including 11% in North America and 16% internationally. The company’s cloud services, AWS, showed a 12% retail gains growth in the quarter. Amazon’s quarterly bottom line, a 94-cent diluted EPS, was 35 cents ahead of the estimates – and compared favorably to the prior-year quarter’s 28-cent result. Covering Amazon for Tigress Financial, Ivan Feinseth sees the company standing to gain from its brand recognition, its scale, and its ability to leverage AI technology. The 5-star analyst writes, “Our target price, multiples, and growth rates are supported by AMZN’s strong brand equity and dominant industry position combined with its massive cash position and cash flow, enabling ongoing investments in its growth initiatives to support the integration of generative AI as a major growth driver and business optimizer combined with ongoing innovation in AWS and opportunities for massive AI integration across all business lines along with its increasing fulfillment capabilities.” Feinseth’s target price of $210 suggests a 47% upside on the one-year horizon, and supports his Buy  rating on the stock. (To watch Feinseth’s track record, click here) Amazon is that rare beast - a stock with plenty of coverage where everyone is in agreement. It has garnered 40 analyst reviews over the past 3 months – all Buys – naturally making the consensus view here a Strong Buy. The shares have a $143.20 trading price, and a $175.51 average price target implying potential for a 22% one-year gain. (See Amazon stock forecast ) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’  Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

Below is Validea's guru fundamental report for MICROSOFT CORP (MSFT). Of the 22 guru strategies we follow, MSFT rates highest using our Twin Momentum Investor model based on the published strategy of Dashan Huang. This momentum model looks for a combination of fundamental moment

A short iron condor is an income strategy that aims to profit when a stock stays within a specified range over the course of the trade. The trade is composed of four options with the same expiration: