Over the past few months, anticipating economic storms, I have been lightening up my holdings, raising cash. Some of my favorite stocks, like Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have been jettisoned. I even lightened up on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). But one Big Tech stock remains untouched — Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
It’s not that I expect Microsoft to get to $100 per share or even $80, as Richard Saintvilus believes. I don’t expect them to buy Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA), as Will Ashworth has speculated, or get more out of the Xbox One, as Chris Lau thinks. I would never (god forbid) compare it with AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T).
Mine is a defensive play. I expect Microsoft to get through the storm more comfortably than rivals. You may spend money with Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), or the new iPhone … but if you are a corporation, you will pay your Microsoft bill. Here is why.
The Integrated Cloud
I have been arguing for years against any claims that Microsoft has a bigger cloud than Amazon. It’s silly. Amazon is the leading cloud infrastructure, it has been for years, its lead is not threatened.
But Microsoft is a vertically-integrated cloud. It offers the full suite from infrastructure through software, and several layers of applications going right to services. It dominates the market in most of these areas. It does not compete with its customers, as Amazon so often does. It can stay in its own lane and prosper.
As Richard Band notes, all Microsoft units are pulling in the same direction. Microsoft’s customers aren’t going to be building PCs like the Surface Pro. They are not creating applications like Microsoft’s Whiteboard.
Maybe Microsoft sees the bright lines of antitrust because its long twilight struggle with the Justice Department, which finally ended in 2011, three years before Satya Nadella became CEO, taught it lessons Amazon has yet to learn.
Or maybe it’s because the cloud, once Microsoft committed to it, has proven to be a gold mine, one it can comfortably create new application spaces in, like blockchained healthcare , while serving customers rather than competing with them.
Profits Rolling In
Microsoft’s margins are back to its Windows-era level of over 20%, with $4.8 billion of the $22 billion brought in during the March quarter falling to the net income line. Microsoft now carries a cash hoard of $126 billion, enough to keep investment humming through any conceivable storm, and it has become a cash flow monster, with $20 billion of operating cash flow or more most quarters.
It’s true that Microsoft now lists $76 billion of long-term debt on its books, but it could pay it all off any time, and still have about $50 billion left over.
Microsoft has started another round of layoffs as it reevaluates the company. This latest wave of restructuring will mostly affect Microsoft’s PC and enterprise business outside of the U.S. Microsoft hasn’t revealed the extent of the layoffs, but only noted that it “evaluates its business on a regular basis.”
MSFT stock is down a little more than half-a-percent on the news, but this is actually good as it means Microsoft is committed to becoming even leaner and more cloud-focused.
Bottom Line on MSFT Stock
When Microsoft next reports earnings on July 20, analysts are expecting it to report net income of 71 cents per share on revenue of $24.46 billion. That represents nearly double-digit growth on the top line.
But if Microsoft comes up a few cents short, or even a few billion dollars short, you would be foolish to dump MSFT stock. There is now a dividend, 39 cents per share, and any drop in the stock’s price would merely boost its yield, which at 2.2% is already ahead of what you’d get on a 10-year U.S. government bond.
Microsoft today is what International Business Machines Inc. (NYSE:IBM) was when Microsoft was founded 40 years ago. It is a core holding, a dependable earner, something you buy when everything around you is collapsing, not something you sell.
Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the historical mystery romance The Reluctant Detective Travels in Time, available now at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in MSFT, BABA and AMZN.
