Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella sold 50% of his stock in various transactions Nadella sold 840,000 for about $285 million. Microsoft stated that he made a move for diversification and personal financial reason.
Even though Microsoft did not mention Nadella’s financial reasons, a report from the Wall Street Journal speculates that he sold the stock because of the new capital gains tax. Washington state announced that it had passed the controversial law a week after Nadella sold his stock leading many to believe that he knew about the law.
Legislators passed the bill in April. It targets business ownership sales and stock. The law includes a 7% tax on long-term capital gains of more than 250,000. Washington hopes to collect about $500 million manually, which would go towards child care and early education.
Microsoft announces zero-day attack
Microsoft is facing criticism after announcing another zero-day attack less than a month after fixing a vulnerability that left Windows prone to a zero-day attack. A security researcher, Abdelhamid Naceri, disclosed the new vulnerability.
The flaw uses a vulnerability that Microsoft did not fix on its last patch up. It allows hackers to take a computer and spread the attack over the user’s network.
Barely a day after this announcement, Naceri found another flaw. It presents the same benefits to hackers by allowing them to take over a computer and pass the virus to the victim’s network.
It has not been all bad news for Microsoft as the Zacks Computer-Software industry stated that it outperformed it in the last quarter. According to Zacks analysts, Microsoft’s performance is due to its growing Azure cloud platform as global transformation increases.
Other factors that might have added to Microsoft’s growth are increased users on its applications, including Microsoft 365 suite, Power Platform, and Dynamics. It has also significantly benefited from an increased acceptance of work-from-home and hybrid office setups.
Microsoft’s next performance could be lower
Despite having good performance, the company has stated that it expects a decline for its second quarter. The company expects that issues with the supply chain could affect its revenue and increased spending on Azure to ensure that it can keep up with completion from Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) cloud-based platforms.
Meanwhile, experts have noted that mega-cap tech stock will increase because of its defensive characteristics when with the pandemic.
