The list of stocks with a market cap above $1 trillion is short. It includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Meta Platforms, Microsoft (MSFT -0.57%), and Nvidia.
There is an argument for investing in each of these corporations. All are leaders in their respective fields, generally deliver excellent financial results, and are led by impressive CEOs. But which one is the best option right now?
Going by average Wall Street price targets (according to Yahoo! Finance), the answer is Microsoft. The tech company price target implies an upside of 20.1% from its current levels, higher than that of its peers in the trillion-dollar club, as of this writing. Whether Microsoft is a better pick than these other companies, though, the stock looks attractive. Here's why.
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The artificial intelligence (AI) tailwind
Microsoft has been firing on all cylinders, as its cloud division, Azure, is taking off. This segment has been the company's top growth driver for some time, but its momentum has accelerated thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Based on current trends, investors can anticipate continued growth driven by cloud and AI for Microsoft in the foreseeable future. Here are three reasons why.
First, demand for AI-related services continues to surge. That's partly what's powering not just Microsoft, but several other tech leaders as well.
Second, Microsoft's cloud division has been gaining on the leader in the field, Amazon. Microsoft's established relationship with companies that use its computer operating systems and productivity tools is likely playing a role here. Microsoft also grants users access to OpenAI's large language model through Azure. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is still seen as a (perhaps the) industry standard, something that is likely pulling at least some companies toward Azure versus competing providers.
Third, in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2025, Microsoft topped $100 billion in commercial bookings for the first time in its history, with the metric increasing 37% year over year. It ended its fiscal year with a contracted backlog of $368 billion, even higher than its trailing-12-month revenue of $281.7 billion.
Microsoft's financial results during its latest period were excellent. Revenue jumped 18% year over year to $76.4 billion. Azure revenue was up 39% year over year. Operating and net income increased 23% and 24%, respectively.
Expect the tech giant to maintain that momentum -- or something close to it -- through the next 12 months at least.
Think long term
Will Microsoft match Wall Street's price target in the next year? In my view, there is a good chance that it can. However, even if it doesn't, the stock appears incredibly attractive to investors focused on the long term.
Although the company's AI and cloud businesses are booming, this is likely still the early stages of these industries' growth stories. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy pointed out last year that 85% of IT spending still happens on-premises.
In other words, cloud computing hasn't taken over yet -- not even close. Microsoft is about as well-positioned as any company to benefit from this long-term tailwind.
Besides the fact that it is already a leader and is proving it can thrive despite stiff competition, Microsoft's cloud services come with high switching costs, granting it a strong competitive advantage. So, the future is bright for the company. And that's before looking at its dividend.
Also, Microsoft is one of the top dividend payers among the trillion-dollar companies. It has increased payouts by 130.6% in the past decade. Although its forward yield of 0.7% is unimpressive, the company's strong underlying business and ability to generate significant amounts of free cash flow more than compensate for that.
Lastly, Microsoft still looks reasonably valued. The company's 33 forward price-to-earnings ratio isn't significantly higher than the 29.2 average for the information technology sector.
The stock certainly deserves a premium. And at current levels, there should be plenty of upsides for Microsoft, especially for investors who hold on to the company's shares for a long time.
