$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ stock has rallied because the company has been seen as having a lead in artificial intelligence, but an analyst at D.A. Davidson said it should no longer trade at a premium.
Microsoft shares have jumped 37% over the last 12 months as investors bought up megacap tech stocks amid excitement for the future of generative AI. Microsoft was one of the first major tech companies to get on the AI train as it invested heavily in ChatGPT parent OpenAI and offered AI capabilities on Azure, its cloud-computing program.
D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria wrote that he recognizes that Microsoft was one of the first companies to prioritize gen-AI investing. However, he wrote in a note on Monday that “we believe competition has largely caught up with Microsoft on the AI front, which reduces the justification for the current premium valuation.”
Microsoft stock currently trades at 31.8 times the per-share earnings the company is expected to produce over the next 12 months. The five-year average is 29.3 times.
Luria downgraded shares of Microsoft to Neutral from Buy but maintained his target of $475 for the price. The stock was down 0.3% to $434 in premarket trading Monday.
“We believe that Microsoft’s lead is now diminished in both the cloud business and code generation business, which will make it hard for MSFT to continue to outperform,” Luria wrote, adding that one of the company’s biggest competitors is $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ and its Amazon Web Services cloud business.
Luria also has concerns about Microsoft’s reliance on $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ for AI chips, and how expensive that has become. Investors have been paying close attention to the amount of money large tech companies are spending to fund their AI initiatives, with some concerned that it will take too long to see any return on investments.
“After significant margin expansion last year, Microsoft is now guiding for a decline in operating margins in order to pay for the data center capex increasing from 12% of revenue to 21% of revenue,” Luria wrote. “This is a higher rate of increase compared to Amazon and Google, a result of Microsoft’s greater reliance on NVIDIA.”
Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Still, most analysts are optimistic about Microsoft’s future. Of the 59 surveyed by FactSet, 55 say the stock is a Buy, three say it’s a Hold and one says it’s a Sell.
“Microsoft continues to work aggressively to maintain their early lead in the enterprise AI race,” Truist Securities analyst Joel Fishbein, who rates Microsoft as a Buy with a $430.50 price target, wrote on Sept. 16. “We expect Microsoft to be a disproportionately large beneficiary due to their partnership with OpenAI.”