By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock climbed 1.3% higher Thursday following bullish reports by four brokerages ahead of the software and cloud provider’s fourth-quarter earnings announcement on July 27.
Citi gave the most bullish target of $378 for the stock, a Street-high which translates into a 33% upside from the current level of $285.
KeyBanc sees the stock at $330, BofA Securities at $325 and Cowen at $310.
According to StreetInsider, Citi (NYSE:C) analyst Tyler Radke expects to see a strong finish to the year by the company as IT budgets recover and there’s an uptick in expected reseller growth amid slightly higher PC numbers compared to three months ago.
BofA Securities (NYSE:BAC) analyst Brad Sills pointed to potential for upside in the company’s cloud platform Azure. The analyst said his channel checks have suggested that Azure has strong continued momentum on its side.
Cowen analyst Nicholas Yako also wrote about Azure.
“We model Azure growth of 40% constant currency vs 46% last quarter and think expectation is in the mid-40s,” he wrote, according to StreetInsider. He reiterated his outperform rating for the stock.