Microsoft Calms Fears With a Positive Outlook; FVE Stable at $352, Shares Undervalued

Microsoft reported headline fiscal fourth-quarter revenue and EPS results just below the low end of the lowered guidance range from June 2. However, we believe that Microsoft's fundamentals remain sound, as the company's performance was hurt mainly by things beyond its control, such as a stronger U.S. dollar, persistent supply chain issues, further scaling back in Russia, and general macroeconomic pressures. We are encouraged by several pockets of strength, such as Azure, the continued migration to Office E5, and traction with the Power platform. We consider guidance to be quite good in the face of investors' intense fear. We see results as reinforcing our thesis centering on the proliferation of hybrid cloud environments and Azure, as the firm continues to use its on-premises dominance to allow clients to move to the cloud at their own pace. We also think Microsoft's strong pipeline of large deals bode well for the broader software industry overall. We are maintaining our $352 per share fair value estimate for wide-moat Microsoft and view shares as attractive.