KLCM Advisors Inc. Takes $1.51 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

KLCM Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 8,078 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,508,000.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM traded up $0.84 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $163.34. 8,316,028 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $171.89 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $194.51. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.18. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $274.00.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for 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 for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $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. As a group, research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on CRM. Sanford C. Bernstein cut their target price on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Salesforce in a report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a “neutral” rating on the stock. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $254.42.

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.