Microsoft (MSFT) Offering Possible 56.25% Return Over the Next 22 Calendar Days

Microsoft's most recent trend suggests a bullish bias. One trading opportunity on Microsoft is a Bull Put Spread using a strike $202.50 short put and a strike $197.50 long put offers a potential 56.25% return on risk over the next 22 calendar days. Maximum profit would be generated if the Bull Put Spread were to expire worthless, which would occur if the stock were above $202.50 by expiration. The full premium credit of $1.80 would be kept by the premium seller. The risk of $3.20 would be incurred if the stock dropped below the $197.50 long put strike price.

The 5-day moving average is moving down which suggests that the short-term momentum for Microsoft is bearish and the probability of a decline in share price is higher if the stock starts trending.

The 20-day moving average is moving down which suggests that the medium-term momentum for Microsoft is bearish.

The RSI indicator is at 35.71 level which suggests that the stock is neither overbought nor oversold at this time.

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LATEST NEWS for Microsoft

GLOBAL MARKETS-Tech lifts world stocks as economy back in focus
Wed, 23 Sep 2020 08:53:35 +0000
World shares stabilised and the dollar rose on Wednesday with overnight gains of stay-at-home Wall Street tech champions helped balance concerns that new restrictions to counter resurging coronavirus infections will hurt economic recovery. First indications from global surveys about economic activity in September gave a gloomy picture for Europe with rising COVID-19 infections leading to a downturn in services. MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, was 0.2% higher by 0821 GMT, while the pan-European STOXX 600 benchmark rose 1.1%.

Microsoft Launches Cloud Communications Services To Rival Twilio
Wed, 23 Sep 2020 03:52:03 +0000
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) on Tuesday launched Azure Communications Services, composed of cloud-based voice and video calling, chat, and telephony features.What Happened: The new features are built natively on top of the tech giant's Azure cloud, according to TechCrunch, which earlier reported the news.Businesses can reportedly utilize additional smart services to roll out their communication services such as translation tools."We see rich communication experiences – enabled by voice, video, chat, and SMS – continuing to be an integral part in how businesses connect with their customers across devices and platforms," said Scott Van Vliet, Microsoft's corporate vice president for intelligent communication.Why It Matters: Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) offer some of the features but both do not have a fully-featured communication service in place as of yet, noted TechCrunch.The cloud new service by the Redmond-based tech giant is more of a competitor to Twilio Inc (NYSE: TWLO) and the upcoming MessageBird's services.Microsoft is using the same low latency global communication network for the new feature set that it uses to support 5 billion meeting minutes for its Teams service, according to Van Vliet.Last year the global cloud infrastructure market reached 7 billion, a rise of 37% year-over-year, according to data released by Canalys in February.Amazon Web Services is the top player in the cloud service market as of Q4 2019 with 32.4% of the market share, while Microsoft Azure came in second with 17.6% market share.Price Action: Microsoft shares closed nearly 2.4% higher at $207.42 on Tuesday.See more from Benzinga * Is Elon Musk The New Steve Jobs? Bill Gates Says No * Facebook Partners With Eyewear Giant To Make 'Smart Glasses' * Warner Bros Unveils Harry Potter RPG For PlayStation, Xbox(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Sony slides 2% as Microsoft flashes cash to boost games lineup
Wed, 23 Sep 2020 03:34:00 +0000
Sony Corp's shares slid as much as 2% in Tokyo trade on Wednesday after Microsoft Corp said it would buy the parent of games publisher Bethesda Softworks, in a deal to bolster its games slate as it eyes cloud gaming expansion. Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of the publisher behind hit franchises like “Doom” and “Fallout” helps close that gap, as it pushes into cloud gaming with the launch of a subscription service last week for Android devices.

Blacklisting U.S. Tech Would Highlight China’s Own Weakness
Wed, 23 Sep 2020 02:29:25 +0000
(Bloomberg Opinion) — Plans by China to draw up a blacklist of U.S. technology firms might sound great to hardliners as a retaliatory measure against Washington, but would most likely backfire. Pulling the trigger on such a threat could end up proving that the importance of the world’s most populous country as a global buyer may be smaller than many imagine.Beijing has sped development of a catalog of companies it could target, yet debate remains in the halls of power over whether to release it before November’s U.S. election, if at all, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing officials it didn’t name. China has been mulling what it calls an unreliable entities list since at least May last year, though little has been heard of it since then.You can understand Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s possible frustration as U.S. President Donald Trump rolls out ban after ban on companies from national champion Huawei Technologies Co. to booming upstart ByteDance Ltd.Still, Xi’s own agenda to build China into a technology powerhouse makes him more reliant on the very firms likely to appear on any blacklist. In addition, there are also companies Beijing no longer needs — often because their technology has already been pilfered — that have already started reducing their reliance on the Chinese market, weakening the real power of any threat.Cisco Systems Inc., a global leader in communications technology, is a likely target of possible bans, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, the Silicon Valley company posted a 16% drop in sales from China last year, with the entire Asia-Pacific region (including Japan) accounting for just 15% of revenue in fiscal 2019. Of the 26 competitors it identified by name in its annual report, only two are Chinese, Huawei and Lenovo Group Ltd.In fact, the list of major U.S. technology companies can be roughly categorized as those having almost no exposure to China because they’ve already been banned (Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.), or are of such crucial importance that Beijing can’t do without them, at least for now. Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., and Microsoft Corp. would fall into the latter. Then there’s a third group, like Apple Inc. China could ban Apple, I suppose. The nation can survive without iPhones and Macs, but America’s largest company also spends a significant amount on parts and labor in China. It would be less than wise for Beijing to bite the hand that feeds millions of its citizens. Similar to Cisco’s experience, the country is declining in importance to Apple, with sales from the Greater China region falling 16% last fiscal year. It’s hard to argue that China isn’t an important market for American firms. If you look at the chief exports, the reality becomes more clear. Civilian aircraft, including engines and equipment — think Boeing Co. and General Electric Co. — topped the list last year at $10.4 billion, accounting for 9.8% of total U.S. goods sold to China. That’s followed by semiconductors (8.5%) and soybeans (7.5%). It’s notable that while aerospace tops the list of 10 American advanced technology products shipped to China, the value is roughly on par with the U.K. and Canada, while France tops them all. Looking at this subcategory of high-level U.S. goods, accounting for roughly 32% of exports to China, the country is rarely the top buyer. Canada, for example, spent more last year on American information and communications products. A lot of what China does import is just re-exported anyway: Most of those chips it buys head straight back out the door inside iPhones and PlayStations bought by foreign consumers.Trickiest of all is semiconductors. Chinese imports of American chips is a weakness for Beijing, not Washington, and has already been exploited by the Trump administration, most notably by cutting off Huawei from the American technology to manufacture them. It would be a fruitless move for China to ban any chip companies simply out of spite.An unintended byproduct of China copying U.S. technology over the past two decades is that it can no longer hold those companies to ransom, while at the same time it can’t simply afford to kick out those it hasn’t yet been able to replace with local versions. Blacklisting any of them, however, might make an effective piece of theater, and at little cost if the sacrifices are limited to companies it doesn’t really need. China’s rulers will want to calculate whether there’s a pre-election benefit, or if they’d be helping Trump. Even if they wait until after the next president is known, such a move would present a show of strength.That feeling of power might be fleeting. Enforcing such a list is more likely to reveal China as weak.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Microsoft and AT&T Try to Make the Internet of Things Easier
Wed, 23 Sep 2020 01:51:00 +0000
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and AT&T (NYSE: T) recently announced that they're teaming up on a new service for large enterprises that want to deploy network-connected devices. AT&T is running point, making use of Microsoft's tech know-how to make it easier for enterprises to get devices connected to a network. Microsoft and AT&T's announcement is actually a continuation of the partnership they unveiled in 2019, in which AT&T migrated its non-network operations (i.e., those not specifically related to its mobile communications network) to Microsoft's cloud computing service, Azure.

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