Analyst Bets on Microsoft To Reach $1 Trillion Market Cap
Could Microsoft's cloud strategy, partner channel and customer base help it vault ahead of its tech rivals to become the first trillion-dollar company?
Apple, Amazon and Alphabet (Google) have been front-runners in investor speculation about which company could be first to reach the psychological milestone of a trillion-dollar market capitalization.
Attention around the question peaked near the market's recent top in January and has settled considerably as stocks have fallen since. In addition, Facebook, which had been a little further back in the market cap sweepstakes, has completely worked its way out of the conversation in the midst of its recent storm of controversy over data privacy that has severely affected the stock price.
An analyst at Morgan Stanley revived the tech market cap question on Monday with a high-profile note to clients predicting Microsoft will reach a $1 trillion market cap within 12 months.
"Strong positioning for ramping public cloud adoption, large distribution channels and installed customer base, and improving margins support a path to $50 billion in EBIT and a $1 trillion market cap for MSFT," said Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss in a note quoted by CNBC.
Shares of MSFT rose more than 5.5 percent after Morgan Stanley's note.
Here are the companies' relative market caps, according to Yahoo! Finance:
- Apple: $854 billion
- Amazon: $734 billion
- Alphabet (Google): $712 billion
- Microsoft: $710 billion
- Facebook: $453 billion
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 26, 2018