Microsoft has been trending toward a record-high stock price for a while now, and it got a major push in that direction when it beat analyst expectations with a strong earnings report on Thursday.
The company beat Wall Street expectations with a $5.38 billion profit, sending shares up more than 10 percent to about $53.
And just like that, things are starting to look like 1999 all over again.
Microsoft shares reached their peak in December of that year, when the price peaked near $60, adjusted for splits and dividends. Soon after, a federal judge ruled against Microsoft in the now famous antitrust suit that derailed the company for years. Those pains compounded with a slumping technology industry after the dot-com crash, and the Redmond giant found itself in quite a hole.
But the company has been clawing its way back for 15 years now, and is back at the top of its game — at least as far as Wall Street is concerned. So far this year, the company’s stock is up more than 14 percent.
Microsoft delivered earnings per share of 67 cents for the first quarter of 2016, up from the 58 cents analysts predicted.
That’s also up from 57 cents per share the company reported at this time in 1999, right in the middle of its heyday when one of the company’s biggest problems was reassuring everyone that it didn’t appear Y2K was having a “significant impact on results.”
Net income that quarter was $2.19 billion, or $3.13 billion after inflation. This quarter, Microsoft showed a profit of $5.38 billion.
