Market Update: Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) – LinkedIn CEO may pocket $88 million in Microsoft deal

[at American City Business Journals] – LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s hiring package at Microsoft could be worth as much as $88 million, VentureBeat reports, after parsing through a new LinkedIn securities filing. Although that number isn’t even close to the $2.9 billion LinkedIn found Reid Hoffman is reportedly taking home from the deal, it’s still a massive payday. News that LinkedIn (LNKD) will be sold to Microsoft (MSFT) in an $26.2 billion all-cash sale in mid-June sparked a rally in tech stocks, as other companies were named as potential acquisition targets. Read more on this. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) , with a current value of $400.65B, began trading this morning at $50.87. During today’s session, MSFT traded between $50.74 to $51.20 with the price of the stock fluctuating between $39.72 to $56.85 over the last 52 weeks. MSFT shares are currently priced at 19.16x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively expensive compared to the industry’s 2.21x earnings multiple. And for income investors, the company pays shareholders $1.44 per share annually in dividends, yielding 2.81%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 29 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $0.58 per share, which would be $0.02 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.09 sequential decrease. Furthermore, our analysis shows the full-year EPS estimate to be $2.67, which would be a $0.21 better when compared to the last year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $22.15 Billion. If realized, that would be a 0.14% decrease over the year-ago quarter. In terms of ratings, Macquarie Initiated MSFT at Neutral (Mar 4, 2016). Previously, Morgan Stanley upgraded MSFT from Equal-Weight to Overweight. Investors should keep in mind is that the average price target is $58.13, which is 14.27% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NASDAQ:MSFT) Similar Articles: Company Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): Microsoft bought LinkedIn because the robots are coming for your jobs Stock Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): With LinkedIn deal, Microsoft is bringing in a new era of software: VC investor Market Update (NASDAQ:MSFT): Microsoft finally buys Yahoo, but it’s called LinkedIn