What Happened?
Shares of technology giant Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fell 2.6% in the afternoon session after disclosure that CEO Satya Nadella sold a significant amount of company stock, compounding a broader sell-off in the technology sector.
According to a regulatory filing, Nadella offloaded $75.3 million worth of Microsoft shares on September 3 as part of a pre-arranged trading plan. Such large insider sales can sometimes concern investors. The decline also occurred as the wider market pulled back, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite trading lower and other mega-cap technology stocks like Nvidia and Amazon also in the red.
Separately, there are reports that OpenAI is developing an AI jobs platform that could challenge LinkedIn and is planning to produce its own AI chips with Broadcom in 2026. Such news could trigger concerns about increased competition or shifts in the AI landscape.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Microsoft? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Microsoft’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 4 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 4 months ago when the stock gained 10.4% on the news that the company reported strong first-quarter 2025 results, with revenue and operating income both beating Wall Street estimates, driven by surging demand for cloud and AI services, signaling resilient enterprise spend amid broader tech budget scrutiny.
Sales rose 13%, supported by broad-based strength across all business segments. While Productivity and Business Processes grew 10% and More Personal Computing rose 6%, the standout performance in Azure tipped the scales, thanks to increased customer adoption of AI workloads and infrastructure. The bottom line was equally strong. Operating income climbed 16%, outpacing revenue growth, with operating margins expanding across all three segments. This margin strength helped boost net income, pushing earnings past analysts' estimates. Overall, this was a solid quarter with key areas of upside.
Microsoft is up 18% since the beginning of the year, and at $493.74 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $535.64 from August 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Microsoft’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,436.
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