The Last Time Microsoft Stock Was This Cheap Was 2017

2 months ago 23

Keithen Drury, The Motley Fool

Fri, April 17, 2026 astatine 10:05 AM CDT 3 min read

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has had an atrocious year. The banal is down 20% for the twelvemonth and is inactive down astir 30% from its all-time high. However, nary of this sell-off is due to the fact that its concern is failing.

Microsoft's concern is inactive increasing astatine a beardown gait for its size and is well-positioned to beryllium 1 of the large artificial quality (AI) toolkit providers that win arsenic AI becomes much prevalent. This sets Microsoft's banal up good for the future, which makes today's ungraded inexpensive terms tag an adjacent much compelling opportunity.

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It has been a agelong clip since Microsoft was this cheap, and investors shouldn't hold for a amended buying opportunity; the clip is now.

Investor looking astatine  a laptop confused.

Image source: Getty Images.

There are countless ways to worth a stock. Any 1 of them tin beryllium tweaked oregon selected to marque results look much favorable than they are. Net income is simply a notorious metric for unusual accounting practices.

One mostly accepted accounting signifier (GAAP) regularisation is that corporations indispensable admit summation connected investments each quarter, adjacent if they haven't sold. For Microsoft, this is simply a large contributor, arsenic it owns astir 27% of OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. The valuation connected this concern has risen each quarter, truthful Microsoft had to study it arsenic nett income, adjacent if it did nothing. That's not really accretive to Microsoft's earnings.

So I deliberation a amended mode to measurement Microsoft's profitability is done operating income. If we utilize this valuation metric, it hasn't been this inexpensive since 2017.

MSFT Operating PE Ratio Chart

MSFT Operating PE Ratio information by YCharts

That's astir a decennary ago, and we've seen a batch of daunting marketplace conditions successful that clip frame, including the 2022-to-2023 tech sell-off and COVID-19 pandemic. All of those situations seemed acold much dire than the marketplace we spot today, particularly due to the fact that the outlook for Microsoft is bright.

Wall Street analysts expect 16% gross maturation for Microsoft's fiscal 2026 (ending June 30), past 15% adjacent year. That doesn't look similar a institution that is failing, and Microsoft's AI beingness volition beryllium a large origin successful driving the banal rebound.

I deliberation contiguous is simply a true, once-in-a-decade buying accidental for Microsoft stock. These prices conscionable don't travel astir precise often, and investors request to instrumentality vantage of them portion they're available. Microsoft reports its quarterly results astatine the extremity of the month, and that could beryllium the catalyst the banal needs to kick-start an unthinkable rebound.

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