Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)
260.50 -0.24 (-0.09%)
Pre-market: 4:38AM EDT
| Previous close | 259.50 |
| Open | 259.47 |
| Bid | 0.00 x 1800 |
| Ask | 0.00 x 800 |
| Day's range | 257.60 - 260.99 |
| 52-week range | 166.11 - 261.00 |
| Volume | 24,878,621 |
| Avg. volume | 30,215,112 |
| Market cap | 1.967T |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 0.79 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 38.88 |
| EPS (TTM) | 6.71 |
| Earnings date | 27 Apr 2021 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 2.24 (0.86%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 19 May 2021 |
| 1y target est | 273.71 |
- Reuters
Microsoft to invest $1 billion in Malaysia to set up data centres - Malaysian PM
Microsoft Corporation will invest $1 billion over the next five years in Malaysia as part of a new partnership programme with government agencies and local companies, the Southeast Asian nation's prime minister said on Monday. The announcement on what would be the U.S. tech giant's biggest investment in Malaysia comes after the country in February gave conditional approvals for Microsoft, Google, Amazon and state telecoms firm Telekom Malaysia to build and manage hyper-scale data centres and provide cloud services. It also comes after the country saw foreign direct investments (FDI) plunge by 68% last year, the biggest decline in Southeast Asia.
- Bloomberg
India’s Razorpay Triples Valuation to $3 Billion With Funding
(Bloomberg) -- Razorpay, an Indian startup that facilitates digital payments, is raising $160 million from Sequoia India, Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC Pte and others, tripling its valuation to $3 billion in six months.The Bangalore-headquartered company, which helps businesses to automate their payment systems, will use the funds to expand into banking and lending, make acquisitions and add services in Southeast Asia, the company said in an announcement on Monday. Razorpay Software Pvt, as the company is formally known, has raised a total of $366.5 million so far.India is in the middle of an unprecedented startup boom, as the coronavirus pandemic drives more activity online and investors see untapped opportunity for profit in the fledgling digital ecosystem. Earlier this month, six startups turned unicorns within the span of days, almost as many as all of 2020. Razorpay is the latest beneficiary, seeing its valuation surge after reaching the $1 billion mark in October.The startup has seen 300% growth in both volume and revenues during the financial year ending in March, its co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Harshil Mathur said.“We process about $40 billion annualized payments volume currently, compared with $12 billion a year ago,” said Mathur, discussing the funding via a Zoom video conference call. More than 5 million businesses use its payments infrastructure currently, compared with 3 million last year.India’s fintech segment has received a substantial boost after stringent lockdowns, night curfews and restrictions on the operation of malls and supermarkets. Consumers in the country of 1.3 billion people are spending more on e-commerce, internet learning, online gaming and wealth management services.“Offline merchants are coming online at a rapid pace, and boutique stores and artisanal stores are opening up online, boosting digital payments,” said Mathur, whose service competes with startups like BillDesk and PayU.Razorpay was founded in Dec. 2014 by Mathur, now 30, and his classmate Shashank Kumar, 31, from the country’s premier engineering school, the Indian Institute of Technology’s Roorkee campus. The two had gone on to work overseas for Microsoft Corp. and Schlumberger before the idea of starting a payment gateway brought them back to India. Mathur said the duo had beaten a path to at least a hundred bankers before getting a payment gateway license.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
China’s Internet Stocks Face More Pain, Global Investors Say
(Bloomberg) -- After a historic antitrust crackdown on China’s biggest tech companies last week, investors are betting there is more pain ahead.GAM Investments, BNP Paribas Asset Management and JP Morgan Asset Management Inc. see more regulatory tightening in China’s clampdown on monopolistic practices, putting pressure on the country’s leading internet stocks over the next few months. The Hang Seng Tech Index, where many Chinese tech giants are listed, has already lost about a quarter of its value from a rout that began mid-February.The shockwaves from Beijing’s bid to quell abuses of information and market dominance among industry leaders have left global investors pondering the prospects of China’s internet firms. The antitrust crackdown has exacerbated a global tech selloff sparked by rising bond yields, as traders forecast tighter liquidity conditions at home and abroad and lower company valuations.“Regulations for China internet companies, especially the big ones, will continue to tighten in 2021,” said Marcella Chow, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset. “This uncertainty may act as a cap for some companies temporarily.”China slapped a record $2.8 billion fine on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. after a four-month long investigation into the e-commerce giant’s market practices, then ordered an overhaul of Ant Group Co. Over the past week, more than 30 tech giants issued pledges to obey antitrust laws after Beijing gave them a month to conduct reviews and comply with government guidelines.READ: Jack Ma’s Double-Whammy Marks the End of China Tech’s Golden AgeAlibaba shares have slumped 23% in Hong Kong from a peak in October. Food delivery platform Meituan and tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., which have been on analyst radars for regulatory probes, are down 36% and 18%, respectively, from their peaks earlier this year. By contrast, the Nasdaq 100 index is up more than 8% this year despite entering a technical correction in March.Looking ahead, China’s tech companies are likely to move far more cautiously on acquisitions, over-compensate on getting signoffs from Beijing, and levy lower fees on the domestic internet traffic they dominate. This coincides with some facing delisting threats and sales curbs in the U.S., and others reverberating from a selloff sparked by Archegos Capital Management.Valuations too are serving as a deterrent for investors. Even after its decline, the Hang Seng Tech Index is trading at about 38 times its 12-month earnings estimates versus the 29 times multiple of its American counterpart.“We have already applied a valuations discount to the whole Chinese internet sector to factor in higher regulation risks,” said Jian Shi Cortesi, a Zurich-based fund manager at GAM. The $132 billion asset manager has reduced its exposure to the sector in the past few months amid high valuations, she added.The Hang Seng Tech Index was down as much as 1.1% on Monday. Tencent shares fell as much as 1.9% after Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley lowered their target prices on expectations that advertising revenues will take a hit as apparel-brand and online-education providers cut spending.Keep the FaithThat said, Beijing has moved far faster with its antitrust reforms than the U.S. and Europe have in similar efforts. The landmark case against Microsoft Corp.’s alleged software monopoly took more than half a decade of back-and-forth before settling in 2004. Current hearings involving U.S. tech titans from Google to Facebook Inc. span several fronts, multiple cases and plaintiffs, and may not see the inside of a courtroom for years to come.In contrast, Beijing regulators torpedoed Ant’s IPO the month after Ma’s infamous speech, published new rules shortly after intended to curb monopolistic practices across its internet landscape, then launched its probe into Alibaba on Christmas Eve.“Clarity reduces uncertainty, so this is a positive,” said Joshua Crabb, a portfolio manager at Robeco in Hong Kong.That has helped give investors more optimism for the long term. Money managers see the potential for tech companies to boost earnings as digital technologies catch on for everything from e-commerce and entertainment to social media, a trend that has been accelerated by the pandemic.Meanwhile, mainland traders have kept the faith. They still hold about 6.5% stake in Tencent, the highest in at least three years, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on exchange data.“Post this round of regulation scrutiny, we believe the Chinese internet industry will resume healthy growth,” GAM’s Cortesi said.(Updates with performance of Hang Seng Tech Index, Tencent in tenth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
