For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – September 21, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Microsoft MSFT, Amazon AMZN, Oracle ORCL and Alphabet GOOGL.
Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:
3 Reasons to Hold Microsoft Stock After a +31.2% Surge in 3 Months
Microsoft shares have climbed 31.2% over the past three months, comfortably outperforming the Zacks Computer – Software industry and the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector. Such a strong run naturally invites the question of whether the rally has room left or whether investors should wait for a more attractive entry point.
Given the underlying strength of the company’s fundamentals across cloud and enterprise software, existing shareholders have good reason to stay put rather than chase or exit the stock, even though elevated spending and slipping margins in certain segments argue for some caution before adding fresh exposure. Below are three fundamental reasons that support a hold stance on Microsoft stock in the near term.
Azure and Cloud Momentum Remain the Core Growth Engine
Microsoft’s cloud business remains the single biggest driver of its investment case. In its fiscal fourth-quarter results, the company reported that Azure and other cloud services revenues grew 43% year over year, ahead of its prior guidance, while full-year Azure revenues surpassed $100 billion for the first time, up 41%. Management noted that customer demand continues to exceed available capacity, and the data center footprint expanded by 31 new facilities in the quarter alone, bringing the yearly total to 88 across five continents.
On the innovation front, Microsoft has been expanding its Sovereign Cloud offerings through an enhanced partnership with Mistral, while its custom Maia and Cobalt silicon continue to scale across the fleet, improving performance per dollar and per watt. Adjacent data and analytics products are scaling as well, with PostgreSQL revenue up 55% and Microsoft Fabric surpassing 40,000 paid customers, up more than 60% year over year, reinforcing demand across the broader data estate. Even so, Microsoft Cloud gross margin came in at 65%, down year over year, as the sales mix shifted toward capital-intensive Azure and AI infrastructure investment continued.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, management guided to Azure revenue growth of approximately 45% in constant currency, with growth expected to accelerate further in the first half of the fiscal year, a signal that the cloud runway remains long despite the size of the business already built.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Microsoft’s fiscal 2026 earnings is pegged at $19.62 per share, indicating 9.3% growth.
Enterprise AI Adoption Is Broadening Beyond Early Pilots
Beyond infrastructure, Microsoft’s enterprise software stack is showing genuine traction with AI-native products rather than experimental use. Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats in the June quarter, with net seat additions more than doubling sequentially. The newly launched E7 suite, bundling Copilot, security and governance tools, has already been adopted by large enterprise customers within months of release.
Agent 365, introduced as a governance layer for autonomous agents, registered nearly 40 million agents within two months of launch. Foundry, the company’s platform for building AI applications, has surpassed 100,000 customers with revenues more than doubling year over year. GitHub Copilot has grown to 50 million users, with revenues accelerating following a shift to usage-based pricing.
However, growth is not uniform, as management flagged that CRM-related bookings within Dynamics 365 continue to moderate amid longer sales cycles. For the fiscal first quarter, Microsoft guided Productivity and Business Processes segment revenues to $36.7-$37 billion, suggesting growth of 11-12%, with management pointing to acceleration in Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud revenues through the fiscal year as premium and consumption-based offerings scale.
Disciplined Investment & Durable Growth Outlook Support Patience
Elevated capital spending remains a valid concern for near-term free cash flow, with capital expenditures guided above $50 billion for the September quarter alone and free cash flow already down sharply in the June quarter on higher infrastructure outlays. Even so, Microsoft’s own guidance suggests this investment is being made against durable, broad-based demand rather than speculative buildout.
Commercial remaining performance obligation grew 84% to $678 billion, with growth of 25% even excluding OpenAI-related commitments, indicating the backlog is not narrowly concentrated. Elsewhere, the More Personal Computing segment is guided to decline as Windows OEM revenues face pressure from weaker PC demand and rising component costs.
For fiscal 2027, management guided to another year of double-digit revenue and operating income growth company-wide, with operating margins expected to decline by less than a percentage point, and reaffirmed its expectation to remain free cash flow positive. This combination of accelerating top-line growth, only modest margin compression, and continued profitability gives investors a fundamental basis to hold the stock through the current investment cycle rather than react to headline capital spending figures alone.
Valuation and Competitive Landscape
From a valuation standpoint, MSFT stock appears overvalued, trading at a forward 12-month price/earnings ratio of 24.43X, higher than the industry’s 22.82X, and it carries a Value Score of D. Given the premium valuation versus peers, investors should wait for a better entry point, as much of Azure’s growth already appears priced into the stock.
Competitively, Azure faces Amazon‘s Amazon Web Services, Oracle‘s Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Alphabet-owned Google Cloud, with Amazon leading on infrastructure scale, Oracle pressing hard on AI database workloads, and Google expanding aggressively in AI tools. Amazon, Oracle and Google all keep pricing competitive.
Conclusion
Taken together, accelerating cloud growth, deeper enterprise AI monetization, and a disciplined, well-guided investment framework support holding Microsoft stock rather than exiting after its recent run, even as rising capex and segment-level softness warrant a watchful eye. New money, however, may be better served waiting for a calmer entry point given how much good news already appears priced in. Microsoft currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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