MSFT Stock Gets Slew Of Price Target Hikes Ahead Of Earnings – TD Cowen Sees ‘Higher Than Normal’ Azure Beat Potential

According to the Fly, Mizuho raised its target to $600 from $510, citing healthy channel checks, strong cloud and consumption data, and robust AI adoption.

• UBS raised its target to $675 from $525, citing Azure and Microsoft 365 fundamentals despite higher growth expectations.
• Citi analyst Tyler Radke raised the firm’s price target to $636 from $600 and maintained a ‘Buy’ rating.
• UMass Memorial Health partnered with Microsoft and Accenture on a multi-year Azure data-platform initiative that will connect clinical, operational and research data and introduce AI tools to automate workflows.

Microsoft (MSFT) is drawing fresh analyst attention on Thursday ahead of its upcoming earnings report, with four firms raising their price targets on the stock.

According to The Fly, TD Cowen, Mizuho, Citi and UBS raised their Microsoft price targets, citing Azure trends, cloud demand and enterprise AI adoption.

MSFT stock traded nearly 0.5% higher at the time of writing.

Analysts Highlight Cloud Demand And AI Spending

According to The Fly, TD Cowen raised its price target on Microsoft to $625 from $540 and maintained a ‘Buy’ rating. The firm updated its model ahead of quarterly results, seeing the potential for a “higher than normal” beat on Azure as the third-party data it tracks screened strongest in history, alongside a full quarter of Fairwater and a bullish read on an OpenAI growth inflection.

Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz raised the firm’s price target to $600 from $510 and maintained an ‘Outperform’ rating. Moskowitz said Mizuho’s channel checks in Q3 were “very healthy overall,” with strong public cloud and consumption data points and AI adoption remaining robust.

Citi analyst Tyler Radke raised the firm’s price target to $636 from $600 and maintained a ‘Buy’ rating, according to The Fly. Citi said its recent chief investment officer survey and reseller checks reinforced its view that Microsoft’s core productivity and public cloud franchise should accelerate as enterprises increase AI spending. The analyst also considers Microsoft among the best-positioned AI vendors.

Meanwhile, UBS analyst Karl Keirstead raised the price target on the stock to $675 from $525 and maintained a ‘Buy’ rating. He said the stock’s 39% rally had raised growth expectations, but Azure and Microsoft 365 fundamentals supported the optimism and the valuation remained reasonable.

Microsoft Expands Healthcare AI Initiative

Separately, UMass Memorial Health announced a multi-year initiative with Microsoft and Accenture (ACN) to modernize its data platform using Microsoft Azure. The unified platform is intended to replace siloed reporting systems and support more advanced analytics.

The initiative will also move UMass Memorial’s electronic health record to Azure, connecting clinical, operational and research data on one platform. The health system aims to use the connected data to advance quality and safety goals, including reducing patient length of stay and caregivers’ administrative burden.

Accenture will introduce agentic AI tools to automate complex workflows and uncover insights. UMass Memorial Health expects the transformation to improve speed, quality and security while lowering long-term infrastructure costs.

Retail View On MSFT

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits remained in ‘bearish’ territory, while message volume was ‘normal’ over the past 24 hours.

MSFT shares have gained over 10% year-to-date.

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