One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA, US. | Sector: Technology Services | Exchange: NASDAQ | Web: http://www.microsoft.com

iTradely Smart Advisor recommends that you allocate 11.47% of your total portfolio to Microsoft Corp.

Learn More About Analyst Ratings & Price Targets

The best way to get an overall picture of how a stock is performing is through Analyst Ratings. The analysts provide Buy, Sell or Hold ratings after extensive research of a companies financial reports, listening to conference calls and some of them even get in contact with upper management of the company to get an overall picture of operation.

Although institutional Analyst’s are not always correct, their ratings are followed by millions of traders around the world and they can heavily influence trading activities for a company.

As a retail investor, going through analyst ratings will instantly provide you an idea if the stock is worth buying. Top Analysts also provide their price targets. It’s a prediction of where the stock price might go based on their analysis.

The best way to analyze price targets is to combined average price targets of major analysts. If the average price target is much higher than the current price of the stock, then the probability of a stock going up is also high.

What is Technical Analysis?

Technical Analysis refers to analyzing a stock's price over a period of time. In the financial market, past price patterns are one of the strongest indicators of an asset's future performance.

In easier terms, millions of traders use Live Charts to watch the stock prices, it is actually a single source of truth for most traders. When a stock's price reaches a significant price level/pattern in the chart, millions of traders take buy/sell positions from those levels.

As a regular investor, one of the easiest ways to check technical analysis of a stock is through Technical Indicators. Technical Indicators are programmed algorithms that monitor price changes in the Charts and indicate Buy/Sell based on market conditions.

Some Technical Indicators can be very powerful (e.g SMA) and some can be pretty useless. Stock research tools like iTradely heavily simplify the technical analysis process for the investors by showing Buy/Sell/Neutral ratings combined from 17 powerful technical indicators, all in one page.

What is Earnings Per Share (EPS) and Why is it Important?

EPS, or Earning Per Share, can tell a lot about a stock’s performance. It’s calculated by dividing a company’s profit by the number of outstanding shares of its common stocks.

In layman’s term, earnings is an indicator of a company’s profitability. Higher the earnings, the more profitable a company is.
Some traders pick stocks solely based on EPS or earnings Analysis, it is a very powerful indicator of a stock’s price.

Before you buy a stock, check the company’s earnings History and Surprises. A Surprise happens when a company reports a much higher or lower actual earnings/EPS than the forecasted earnings/EPS.

If a company reports higher EPS surprises consistently, analysts keep raising their estimates, traders become more confident in the company, driving the share price higher.

What is Stock Sentiment?

Stock Sentiment refers to how people speculating about the stock or what kind of trading position investors are often taking.

There are different kinds of sentiments you can find online for a company, this includes Investor Sentiment (Percentage of investors buying or selling), News Sentiment (Is the company getting positive or negative impressions from the Press?), Social Sentiment (The overall trends about the company in social media, is it negative or positive?).

Stock Sentiments can be found in websites like StockTwits and iTradely's Stock Research Tools . The Brain Company also provides Premium Stock Sentiment data for investors.