What happened
Microsoft (MSFT -0.18%), a somewhat surprising tech sector pace-setter of late, had yet another winning session on the stock market Thursday. The veteran software company's share price rose by 3.2%, on a day when the frothy S&P 500 index gained 1.2%, to set a new all-time high. The tech giant was the beneficiary of not one, but two price target increases from analysts.
So what
The more significant of the two hikes was made by JPMorgan Chase's Mark Murphy, who upped his Microsoft price target to $350 per share from his previous $315. Murphy kept his overweight (read: buy) recommendation intact.
The story was much the same with Mizuho Securities' Gregg Moskowitz. He effected a more modest increase, adding $20 to his price target for a new tally of $360. Like his JPMorgan Chase peer, Moskowitz remains a Microsoft bull, as he left his buy recommendation unchanged.
It wasn't immediately apparent why either analyst made his change. Microsoft's stock has been on quite the winning streak lately; Thursday was the sixth day in a row it closed higher.
Now what
Much of this lingering bullishness is due to Microsoft's deep and direct involvement in OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) app humanity can't get enough of these days.
But Microsoft, as anyone who's been at a PC anytime in the last 30 years can attest, already has a formidable business supplied by many revenue sources. Among other solid product lines, its Azure cloud service has been quite successful over the years.
