MSFT: A Dip Worth Considering?

by

Right. So, the market. Honestly, it’s been…a lot. Software stocks are looking a bit peaky, which is always unsettling. Everyone’s suddenly terribly worried about AI disrupting everything. Hyperscalers are promising to spend fortunes building the infrastructure. It’s like watching a very expensive game of digital Lego. And Microsoft, naturally, is right in the middle of it. Down 30% from its highs. Thirty percent! It feels…significant. It’s that sort of drop that makes you want to check the sell-by date on everything, including your investment strategy.

Units of Confidence Lost: 7. Hours Spent Staring at Bloomberg: 11. Number of Times I’ve Considered Becoming a Goat Farmer: 3.

But then, something interesting happened. John Stanton, a director at Microsoft, bought two million dollars worth of stock. Two million! Which, let’s be honest, is a sum of money most of us only encounter in dreams. Or while scrolling through Instagram. It’s a bold move, especially when everyone else seems to be bracing for impact. Makes you wonder what he sees that the rest of us don’t. Or if he just has a very large chequebook and a penchant for risk.

Loading widget...

John Stanton’s $2 Million Bet

Apparently, it’s 5,000 shares. A very precise 5,000. And it increased his holdings by 6.1%. Which, while not exactly turning him into a majority shareholder, is still a pretty substantial vote of confidence. He’s been a director since 2014, so he knows the company. He’s a private equity guy. Probably sees value where others see vulnerability. Or maybe he just likes the dividends. Honestly, it’s hard to know what goes on in the minds of people with that level of wealth.

Hedging Your Bets (Literally)

The thing is, Microsoft isn’t exactly defenseless in this AI arms race. They’ve got a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI. Which feels…strategic. And they’re investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic. So, they’re basically hedging their bets. If AI becomes the dominant force, they get a cut. If it doesn’t, they’re still a major cloud provider. It’s like buying insurance for the digital apocalypse. A very expensive insurance policy, admittedly.

Azure is key, of course. Anthropic has committed to at least $30 billion of compute on Azure. OpenAI, a whopping $280 billion. That’s a lot of servers. A truly staggering amount of electricity. It feels…sustainable? No, probably not. But it’s a good short-term win.

Building Your Own AI (Because Why Not?)

And then there’s the fact that Microsoft is actually building its own AI models. MAI-1. Sounds…intimidating. They’re talking about different model variants for different use cases. It’s like they’re trying to cover all the bases. And they’ve unveiled Maia 200, an AI inference chip that apparently outperforms everyone else’s. Which, if true, is rather impressive. It’s a bit like a car company deciding to build its own engine. Ambitious. And potentially very lucrative.

Less Risk Than Most (Maybe)

So, Microsoft has three potential paths to success: ownership, cloud provision, and in-house development. That feels…diversified. Which, in this market, is a good thing. Other software companies might see their margins squeezed, but Microsoft seems relatively well-positioned. It’s not a guarantee, of course. Nothing ever is. But it’s…encouraging.

The stock is trading at nearly its lowest P/E ratio in a decade. Which, if you’re a value investor, is probably a good sign. Stanton might see an opportunity. I might see a reason to finally stop checking my portfolio every five minutes.

The biggest risk? Some other LLM – Google Gemini, perhaps – achieving total domination. A monopolistic AI overlord. It sounds like a bad sci-fi movie. But it’s a possibility. Still, it seems unlikely anytime soon. For now, at least.

Number of Times I’ve Considered Selling Everything and Moving to a Remote Island: 1. (And counting.)

Read More

2026-02-26 12:53