Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Down 3.9% – Here’s Why

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded down 3.9% on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $162.21 and last traded at $163.3660. 11,995,511 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 13% from the average session volume of 13,845,352 shares. The stock had previously closed at $170.06.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts still argue Salesforce is undervalued relative to its AI strategy, lower valuation, and earnings profile, which could support a rebound if growth re-accelerates.
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce continues to attract investor attention, and some commentary says its faster AI growth and lower valuation give it an edge versus peers like Adobe. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce is still seeing positive product and business headlines, including the U.S. Air Force adopting its Missionforce platform for fleet management, which could reinforce its credibility in mission-critical enterprise software. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Some coverage suggests the stock may have long-term upside from current levels, but the market is still waiting for clearer evidence of a growth inflection before rewarding the shares more meaningfully.
• Negative Sentiment: Morgan Stanley cut Salesforce’s price target from $287 to $185 and downgraded the stock from Overweight to Equal Weight, signaling less confidence in near-term upside. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: A second rating downgrade this month added to concerns that Salesforce may lack a strong growth catalyst, with one analyst saying the risk/reward looks balanced rather than compelling.
• Negative Sentiment: Investor worries about AI disruption are growing, including reports that companies are replacing expensive Salesforce contracts with AI-built CRM tools and that new AI-native competitors could challenge Slack and other Salesforce offerings.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on CRM. Wall Street Zen upgraded Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 6th. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. UBS Group reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Roth Capital reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $133.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.91, a PEG ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.18. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $170.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $189.35. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Salesforce by 0.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,800,353,000 after purchasing an additional 270,913 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after buying an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after buying an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,751,073,000 after acquiring an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.