Microsoft: stock in demand two days before earnings

(CercleFinance.com) - Microsoft shares closed up 1.
7% on Tuesday on Wall Street, boosted by positive comments from Wedbush Securities two days ahead of its Q1 earnings call.

In a note published in the morning, Wedbush's star analyst Dan Ives says that the release, scheduled for Thursday evening, will enable investors to fully assess the implications of the AI revolution.

From Microsoft's viewpoint, it sees this as a moment comparable to the launch of the iPhone, as AI is likely to change the growth trajectory that the Redmond-based group has experienced in the cloud over the past few years, and reinforce the market's confidence in this dynamic, it stresses.

Wedbush, which has an "outperform" rating and a TP of $500 on the stock, forecasts 30% growth in business for Azure, the company's cloud computing arm, over the past quarter.

According to his calculations, customer deployments of 'Co-Pilot' AI projects could generate between $25bn and $30bn in additional sales by end-2025.

Earlier yesterday morning, Microsoft announced that Coca-Cola had chosen it as the preferred supplier for its cloud and AI platforms in a five-year contract valued at some $1.1bn.

Microsoft shares, up 8% since the start of the year, continue to trade at levels close to their all-time highs, making them still the world's leading market capitalization, with a valuation of over 3 trillion dollars.


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