Company Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): Paul Allen’s Space Company Is Close To Debuting World’s Largest Plane

[Benzinga] – A space launch firm financed by Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ), is nearing the completion of the world’s biggest airplane. Reuters reported that Stratolaunch Systems, … Read more on this. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) , with a current value of $397.19B, began trading this morning at $50.64. Looking at the equity, the company’s one day range is $50.37 to $50.83 and has traded between $39.72 and $56.85 over the past 12 months. MSFT shares are currently priced at 18.78x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 2.21x forward p/e ratio. The company pays shareholders $1.44 per share annually in dividends, yielding 2.87%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 29 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $0.58 per share, which would be $0.02 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.09 sequential decrease. What we find to be interesting is that the full-year EPS estimate of $2.67 is a $0.21 better when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $22.17 Billion. If realized, that would be a 0.05% decrease over the year-ago quarter. Recently, Macquarie Initiated MSFT at Neutral (Mar 4, 2016). Previously, Morgan Stanley upgraded MSFT from Equal-Weight to Overweight. The average price target for MSFT shares is $57.76, which is 14.06% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NASDAQ:MSFT) Similar Articles: Stock Update: Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) – [$$] Microsoft’s Azure Can’t Close Gap With AWS Company Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): Microsoft relocating RTP-area office space Company Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): Microsoft: An Activist Investment Analysis (MSFT)