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• Guggenheim analyst raised its rating on Microsoft Corp on Monday.
• John DiFucci says artificial intelligence is "too strong" a tailwind.
• Microsoft stock has lost more than 10% over the past two months.

Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq: MSFT) is in the red at writing even after a Guggenheim analyst raised his rating on the tech behemoth on Monday.  
 

Guggenheim no longer has a price target on Microsoft stock

John DiFucci now rates the multinational at “neutral” – which means no one on Wall Street has a sell rating on Microsoft stock anymore.

His upgrade is based primarily on the strong footing that MSFT has established in artificial intelligence.

 

Potential monetary benefit from Generative AI is too strong a force to contend with … We do see this behemoth’s monopoly status as a valuable fulcrum that it can leverage as it has many times.

On Monday, the analyst withdrew his price objective on the tech stock, though. Earlier this month, Microsoft partnered with Paige on AI-enabled cancer detection (read more).
 

Guggenheim still sees some winds blowing against MSFT

DiFucci agreed that Microsoft Corp can monetize generative artificial intelligence but warned of “material risk in size and timing of the benefit”.

He also expects the titan’s Windows business to remain rather dull as PC shipments are unlikely to pop materially now that the COVID pandemic is behind us.

The Guggenheim analyst still rates Microsoft stock at “neutral” only also because the Nasdaq-listed firm saw a sequential decline in Azure – its cloud unit in its latest reported quarter (find out more).

On the plus side, he expects Office to continue to benefit from deal renewals and price increases. Note that the tech stock currently pays a dividend yield of nearly 1.0%.

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