Salesforce Inc. $CRM Shares Sold by Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management

Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management decreased its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 37.2% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 5,176 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 3,070 shares during the quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $966,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. J. Stern & Co. LLP raised its holdings in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $3,182,951,000. Cardano Risk Management B.V. boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 924.7% during the fourth quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 3,883,610 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,028,807,000 after purchasing an additional 3,504,605 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.5% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 19,672,684 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,211,515,000 after purchasing an additional 2,347,478 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. HC Wainwright lowered Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Daiwa Securities Group dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Guggenheim upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, May 18th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 target price on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE CRM opened at $172.60 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. Salesforce Inc. has a 1-year low of $146.32 and a 1-year high of $274.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $141.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.98, a P/E/G ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.18. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $170.85 and its 200-day simple moving average is $191.34.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.58 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. 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 predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

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.