There are a number of specific details that investors in Microsoft (MSFT 1.82%) should know about its stock. The following slideshow covers a handful of them, walking readers through a broad but brief analysis of the software giant from a shareholder's perspective.
The slideshow shows, among other things, that Microsoft rewards investors in multiple ways:
- It paid out 82% of its earnings via dividends over the last 12 months, resulting in a 2.65% dividend yield.
- It bought back $15.7 billion worth of its own stock over the past four quarters, translating into a 3.1% decrease in Microsoft's outstanding share count.
- And even though its shares yield more than the S&P 500, they still outperformed the large cap index by 43 percentage points over the past decade.
To learn more about Microsoft, scroll through the slideshow.