u/Swred1100 ·
Reddit — r/ValueInvesting
· May 06, 2026 at 14:31
· ⬆ 28 pts
· 💬 32 comments
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AI Summary
Summary
Author argues Microsoft (MSFT) is undervalued at ~$400, with strong cloud growth (40% YoY), a massive enterprise moat, and asymmetric upside in AI.
Thesis: MSFT doesn’t need to dominate AI or cloud to win; its ecosystem lock‑in and optionality on FCF (by cutting capex) make it a compelling long-term value.
Quality assessment: Well‑reasoned value investing DD with specific data points (PE, segment growth, capex dynamics). Not noise; reflects a contrarian, bottom‑up thesis.
Score28
Comments32
Upvote %91%
▶ Full Post Text
The bottom may not be in, but it’s here. Im becoming more interested in MSFT daily. A few weeks ago, every other post here was about MSFT. Now, as the market has been hitting ATH after ATH, and MSFT has stayed around the $400 range, no one’s paying it any attention. Haven’t seen a post about it in days.
As for the actual business, it’s booming. 24x PE, Cloud revenue grew 40% last quarter, productivity up 17%, personal computing down 1%.
The enterprise moat, no matter how badly any company may want to switch off of it, is massive. Simply costs way too much time and productivity loss to switch.
Cloud growth is still great - no it’s not as much as Google, Broadcom, Oracle - but does that matter? They don’t have to be the largest cloud player to print cash from it. 40% growth and still accelerating is perfectly fine by me.
FCF. The only thing holding MSFT back from tens of billions of dollars in FCF is themselves. It’s involuntary - voluntary Capex spending. I know that’s an oxymoron of sorts, but they could decide tomorrow to slash Capex on data centers in half, and there comes tens of billion in FCF. As for the involuntary part - they can’t be entirely left behind in the AI race, sure, but they don’t have to win the race to win as a business.
The AI race. Again, they don’t have to be the dominant player to win as a business. If Copilot can generate near the same results as other models can, enterprises will just stay in the MSFT ecosystem.
It’s one of the most asymmetric bets in the market right now. I hope it stays at $400 for a few more months to load up.
MSFT trades at 24x PE despite 40% cloud revenue growth and 17% productivity growth; FCF is suppressed by voluntary capex. If market sentiment shifts or capex normalizes, MSFT could re‑rate higher, offering a low‑downside entry near $400. Strong business with durable moat, currently ignored by the market at ATHs; accumulation at current levels is a high‑probability value play. AI spending could continue to pressure FCF; cloud growth deceleration; macro downturn hurting enterprise IT spend.