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Here's How Much a $1000 Investment in Microsoft Made 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today

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For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, also plays a role in investing, particularly with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to MSFT for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Microsoft's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Microsoft's main business drivers.

Redmond, WA-based Microsoft Corporation is one of the largest broad-based technology providers in the world. The company dominates the PC software market with more than 80% of the market share for operating systems.

The company’s Microsoft 365 application suite is one of the most popular productivity software globally. It is also now one of the two public cloud providers that can deliver a wide variety of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions at scale.

Microsoft’s products include operating systems, cross-device productivity applications, server applications, business solution applications, desktop and server management tools, software development tools and video games.

The company also designs and sells PCs, tablets, gaming and entertainment consoles, phones, other intelligent devices, and related accessories. Moreover, through Azure, it offers cloud-based solutions that provide customers with software, services, platforms and content.

Microsoft reported revenues of $143.02 billion in fiscal 2020. The company reports operations under three segments: Productivity & Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud and More Personal Computing.

Productivity & Business Processes accounted for 32.5% of fiscal 2020 revenues. The segment offers productivity and collaboration tools and services including Office 365, Dynamics business solutions, Teams, Relationship Sales solution, Power Platform and LinkedIn.

Intelligent Cloud, which include Azure cloud services, contributed to 33.8% of fiscal 2020 revenues.

On October 25, 2018, the company completed the acquisition of GitHub, which provides a collaboration platform and code hosting service for developers, for $7.5 billion.

More Personal Computing represented 33.7% of fiscal 2020 revenues. The segment comprises mainly the Windows, Gaming (Xbox hardware and Xbox software and services), Devices (Surface, PC accessories, and other intelligent devices) and Search (Bing and Microsoft Advertising) businesses.

Bottom Line

While anyone can invest, building a lucrative investment portfolio takes research, patience, and a little bit of risk. If you had invested in Microsoft ten years ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in April 2011 would be worth $9,714.23, or a gain of 871.42%, as of April 9, 2021, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.

In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 208.48% and the price of gold went up 14.51% over the same time frame.

Analysts are anticipating more upside for MSFT.

Microsoft is benefiting from momentum in Azure, impressive Teams user growth triggered by coronavirus-led digital transformation, work-from-home, online learning wave and tele healthcare trends. Solid uptake of new Xbox gaming consoles and Xbox Game Pass drove the top-line growth. Further, the company is gaining from growing user base of its different applications including Microsoft 365 suite, and Dynamics. Notably, shares have outperformed the industry in the past six months' time. However, macroeconomic weakness in job market and lower spend on advertising due to coronavirus pandemic are likely to put pressure on LinkedIn and Search revenues. Further, delays in consulting business are anticipated to limit growth. Increasing spend on Azure enhancements amid stiff competition from Amazon Web Services, is likely to impede margin expansion.

The stock has jumped 7.52% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 1 higher, for fiscal 2021; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.


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