Moran Wealth Management LLC Grows Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Moran Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 95.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 39,796 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 19,450 shares during the quarter. Moran Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $9,432,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 13.7% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $8,582,000 after buying an additional 3,102 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in Salesforce by 12.6% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $611,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Salesforce by 9.0% in the fourth quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $747,000 after purchasing an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd lifted its position in Salesforce by 15.7% during the first quarter. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd now owns 1,770 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $475,000 after buying an additional 240 shares during the period. Finally, Caxton Associates LLP bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 1st quarter valued at $934,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In related news, CEO Marc Benioff sold 2,250 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $258.20, for a total value of $580,950.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,075,567,632.20. This trade represents a 0.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Parker Harris sold 134,662 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $234.70, for a total transaction of $31,605,171.40. Following the sale, the insider owned 139,767 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,803,314.90. This represents a 49.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 157,284 shares of company stock worth $37,274,684 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CRM. BTIG Research initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, December 16th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $335.00 price target for the company. Macquarie upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Citigroup lowered shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 5th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Northland Securities raised their price objective on Salesforce from $264.00 to $267.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $327.74.

Salesforce Stock Up 1.2%

Salesforce stock opened at $266.06 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $249.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.52, a PEG ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.26. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $250.25 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $251.64. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $221.96 and a 12 month high of $367.09. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.86 by $0.39. Salesforce had a return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 17.91%.The firm had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.27 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.41 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.416 per share. This represents a $1.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 18th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 22.16%.

Salesforce Profile

Salesforce, founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a global provider of cloud-based software focused on customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise applications. The company popularized the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for CRM and has built a broad portfolio of products designed to help organizations manage sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics through a unified, cloud-first platform.

Core offerings include Sales Cloud for sales automation, Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing and engagement, and Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.