A Simple Overview of Microsoft's Most Important Stock Metrics

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president, Windows and Devices Group, at a Microsoft employee rally in Seattle, Washington. Image credit: Microsoft.

There are a number of specific details that investors in Microsoft should know about its stock. The following slideshow covers a handful of them, walking readers through a broad but brief analysis of the software giant from a shareholder's perspective.

The slideshow shows, among other things, that Microsoft rewards investors in multiple ways:

It paid out 82% of its earnings via dividends over the last 12 months, resulting in a 2.65% dividend yield.
It bought back $15.7 billion worth of its own stock over the past four quarters, translating into a 3.1% decrease in Microsoft's outstanding share count.
And even though its shares yield more than the S&P 500, they still outperformed the large cap index by 43 percentage points over the past decade.

To learn more about Microsoft, scroll through the slideshow.

Slideshow data sourced from YCharts.com on Dec. 3, 2015. Image credits: iStock/Thinkstock, Microsoft.

The article A Simple Overview of Microsoft's Most Important Stock Metrics originally appeared on Fool.com.

John Maxfield has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.