The MSFT stock price target is getting plenty of attention right now, and for good reason. Microsoft shares jumped 9% on Wednesday, right after Microsoft Q4 earnings 2026 numbers landed, and that came just a day after a top bank had actually trimmed its MSFT stock price target. Shares actually rose about 9% to $426.03 in after-hours trading, which lines up exactly with the headline move everyone’s been talking about.
At the time of writing, analysts are still picking apart the Microsoft earnings report, but the numbers were hard to argue with, $90 billion in revenue and $4.81 per share, well above the $4.24 per share and $87.62 billion Wall Street had expected. The Microsoft stock price move shows just how much weight Azure carries with investors, and it also shows that an MSFT stock price target cut, even from a well known bank, doesn’t always set the tone on earnings day.
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MSFT Stock Price Target After Microsoft Q4 Earnings 2026
So there are really two stories worth telling when it comes to the MSFT stock price target picture this week. There’s the cautious call Scotiabank made before Microsoft Q4 earnings 2026 even came out, and then there’s what actually happened once the Microsoft earnings report landed on Wednesday afternoon.
Scotiabank Cuts Microsoft Stock Price Target Before Earnings
Scotiabank had lowered its Microsoft stock price target to $470 from $550 ahead of earnings, though the bank kept its bullish rating in place, which is worth mentioning. The concern wasn’t really about demand, it was about cost, and about whether all the AI spending keeps paying off the way it has so far. Capital spending, more than Azure growth by itself, is what’s really driving the debate around the MSFT stock price target this week.
Patrick Colville, Scotiabank analyst, said:
“The debate clearly hinges on Azure’s growth and Microsoft’s capital spending plans.”
Microsoft Earnings Report Beats Wall Street Expectations
It seems that Microsoft earnings did what they needed to do this time around. Microsoft Cloud revenue came in at $59.3 billion, up 27% from a year earlier, and Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43%, which is a pretty big number even by Microsoft’s own standards. Full fiscal year revenue reached $331.8 billion, and Azure crossed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time ever. Products such as Microsoft 365 Copilot also kept climbing, passing 30 million paid seats. None of that guarantees where the MSFT stock price target goes next, but it does build a pretty strong case for the bulls.
Amy Hood, Microsoft chief financial officer, said:
“We delivered a strong quarter to close out the fiscal year, highlighted by Microsoft Cloud revenue of $59.3 billion, up 27% year-over-year.”
Satya Nadella, Microsoft chairman and CEO, mentioned:
“It was a very strong close to what was a record fiscal year for us.”
Outside voices are reading the quarter the same way. Michael J. Wolf, founder and CEO of Activate Consulting, said Microsoft is winning on both fronts by supplying the cloud infrastructure enterprise AI needs while also monetizing the AI tools built into everyday products. Bryan Hayes, an investment strategist at Zacks Investment Research, pointed to a shift in how the market is treating all that spending:
“For the first time in three quarters, the market appears willing to grant that the spending is buying something real.”
Danielle Criste, Microsoft’s director of investor relations, said:
“We remain very confident in the long-term return on these investments, given these strong demand signals, the increasing product usage we’ve seen and the efficiencies that we’re driving across the platform.”
What’s Next For The MSFT Stock Price Target
Microsoft also guided Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue to a range of $89.85 billion to $90.95 billion, and Azure growth is expected to land near 45% in constant currency, which is actually higher than the pace it’s been running at. Amy Hood confirmed that capital spending is staying high heading into fiscal 2027, partly because of an accounting change that stretches out how long data center buildings are expected to last, and shifts more leases onto the books as operating leases instead of finance leases. That pushes 2026 capex and finance leases to somewhere around $175 billion, at the time of writing.
So really, the next round of MSFT stock price target changes comes down to the same question Scotiabank raised before earnings even happened, whether Azure keeps growing fast enough to justify all this spending. Right now though, the Microsoft earnings report has given the bulls the stronger argument, and Microsoft stock price is reacting just about the way you’d expect.