Microsoft shares hit $36.67, a six-year high

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has seen some strong stock price gains recently, closing yesterday up over $36. The world's largest software company saw another outstanding quarter last week, and similar to Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), the company just keeps on bypassing naysayers and reporting excellent quarters one after another. If the PC is dead and the operating system is becoming extinct, apparently nobody is telling Redmond.

On the back of great quarterly results, Microsoft's shares have shot up to a six-year high, and it was the largest gainer on Halloween day among the Dow industrials. The $36.67 price from yesterday's trading day was the highest since June 2001, with nearly 100 million shares traded. For a 30-year-old software company seen as un-innovative and boring (well, when compared to Google), Halloween day was a recent milestone in Microsoft's history.

Even last Thursday, almost 290 million shares were traded after Microsoft's Q3 results came back so strong. A Sanford Bernstein analyst said that he expected the company "to continue to exceed expectations" for a while, which added to the flurry of trading as Microsoft's strong results and guidance caused visions of sugar plums to dance in the heads of many investors. Share buybacks, the incredible launch of Halo 3 and the Windows Vista distribution cycle were all cited as factors for strong future performance indicators. Who knew Microsoft would ever be considered a winner of "long-term performance" back in 2005 by analysts?

Disclosure: I own MSFT shares as of 11-1-07.