Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Up 2.3% – Here’s What Happened

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) shares rose 2.3% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $172.38 and last traded at $169.4110. Approximately 13,010,935 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 7% from the average session volume of 13,976,378 shares. The stock had previously closed at $165.65.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. DA Davidson cut their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Wolfe Research lowered shares of Salesforce from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Piper Sandler lowered Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein cut their price target on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Truist Financial cut Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $173.23 and a 200-day simple moving average of $197.31. The company has a market capitalization of $138.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.61, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.58 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares in the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% in the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,608,000 after buying an additional 7,871 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% in the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $307,984,000 after buying an additional 106,107 shares during the period. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the first quarter valued at approximately $1,004,000. Finally, Eminence Capital LP grew its position in Salesforce by 5.6% during the third quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $196,837,000 after buying an additional 43,888 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

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.