Microsoft is the world’s largest company by market capitalization, with an outsized presence in multiple sectors, including cloud computing, gaming, productivity software, and, lately, artificial intelligence.
Microsoft’s broad array of products and services, as well as the recent stock price increase, begs the question of how high MSFT could reach in the future.
Key highlights:
- Microsoft's stock has grown over +418,990% since 1986, reaching a high of $553.79 in July 2025 and a market cap of $3.9 trillion.
- Short-term forecasts suggest volatility with a positive trend overall.
- Long-term predictions based on historical growth rates of MSFT predict the stock to hit $3,298 by 2040 and $14,394 by 2050.
- Based on the historical growth rate of the S&P 500 Index, MSFT could break $1,836 in 2040 and surpass $5,275 in 2050.
In this article, we are going to examine Microsoft stock forecasts for the medium and long term, accounting for the historical growth of important market indices and MSFT’s own historical performance.
But first, here’s an overview of Microsoft stock’s price growth under various relevant growth scenarios.
| 2026 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT stock forecast (Microsoft historical 15.9% ROI - last 20 yrs)* | $486 | $756 | $3,298 | $14,394 |
| MSFT stock forecast (S&P 500 historical 11.1% ROI - last 20 yrs)* | $466 | $639 | $1,836 | $5,275 |
The values in the table were calculated using MSFT’s price of $419 (as of May 22, 2026).
*S&P 500 has averaged 11.13 CAGR since 2006 and MSFT 15.88% over the last 20 years.
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Microsoft stock price history
When the company first started trading in 1986, Microsoft (MSFT) stock price was about 10 cents per share (accounting for several stock splits over the years). Now, nearly 40 years later, MSFT is trading at $419, over +418,990% above its original price. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s market cap sits at $3.1 trillion. A quick stock profit calculation shows that even if you invested just $1,000 in MSFT in the early days, you would now sit on a profit of more than $3.6 million.
Interestingly, MSFT's price first reached $50 in 2000, but it would take more than 15 years before the stock revisited that price point in 2016. After that, Microsoft stock became a hot commodity, and the price exploded, reaching an all-time high closing price of $534 in July 2025.
At the time of writing, Microsoft accounts for 6.2% of the entire weight of the S&P 500, an index measuring the value of the 500 largest US companies trading on the stock market. For context, the combined value of companies indexed by the S&P 500 is over $42 trillion.
Microsoft stock forecast 2026-2027
According to our Microsoft stock price prediction algorithm, MSFT’s price will face significant volatility in the next 12 months, but will display a positive trend overall. The price is projected to decrease to $397 by December of 2026 and then increase, eventually establishing support around the $500 mark. MSFT stock is forecasted to change hands at around $545 a year from now.
Microsoft stock forecast for 2040
Microsoft stock’s price increased by an average of 15.9% per year over the last 20 years. If we used this 20-year CAGR (compound annual growth rate) to calculate long-term profits, Microsoft's stock price would increase to $3,298 by 2040.
Given that Microsoft already has a humongous market cap of $3.11 trillion, it's difficult to imagine that it will be able to keep growing at this rate for 14 more years.
Let's take a look at a more conservative perspective by using the S&P 500 index as a benchmark, which has displayed an average annualized return of 11.13% in the last 20 years. If we use the S&P 500's average annualized return over the last 20 years to project Microsft’s future growth, the price of MSFT would increase to $1,836 in 2040.
Microsoft stock forecast for 2050
Using the S&P's 20-year average annualized return as the basis for the long-term MSFT stock price prediction, Microsoft shares would reach $5,275 by 2050.
Accounting for such a stock price, Microsoft's market cap would grow beyond $32 trillion, which is over 10 times higher than it is today.
While this seems extremely unlikely at first glance, there are indications that the global economy could expand sufficiently to support such market capitalizations in the future. For context, the global gross domestic product (GDP) grew from 12 trillion in 1985 to $101 trillion in 2022, a 742% increase in 27 years. If that same GDP growth were to persist in the next 24 years, the global GDP would reach $850 trillion.
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The bottom line: AI could help MSFT reach new heights in the coming years
Stock price forecasts for MSFT are notably bullish – there are several credible growth scenarios that put the price target for MSFT into quadruple digits. Given Microsoft’s encouraging business results in the past couple of years and its massive investment in AI (that is already paying off with the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT), we can easily see why the company’s stock surpassing $1,000 is not out of the question.
For more long-term stock price analyses, you can check how much higher Tesla, Amazon, and Apple could reach by 2040 and 2050.
If you are instead interested in cryptocurrency forecasts, feel free to check our long-term prediction for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Solana
