Microsoft Will Make You Money
Microsoft has been the Rodney Dangerfield of large-cap stocks for a while now -- it gets no respect. It's hard to believe that this stock got down to below $15 less than a year ago at the March lows. Since then, it's up 82%. For those who've owned the stock over that time, they've also received a fat dividend (currently just under 2%), which will only go up considering that the company continues to throw off cash -- Microsoft had $34 billion in cash stockpiled as of the most recent quarter. The argument last year -- and still an argument that Microsoft bears use now -- is that this is a stock that has no growth prospects. It reported its first decline in quarterly sales year over year in the third quarter of 2009. Its online services business has continued to lose money and is still nowhere compared with Google (GOOG - commentary - Trade Now) in search.
