Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Up 4.9% – Time to Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price was up 4.9% during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $172.76 and last traded at $171.39. 12,894,921 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 7% from the average daily volume of 13,888,729 shares. The stock had previously closed at $163.32.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CRM shares. Barclays raised shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Citizens Jmp reiterated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Guggenheim upgraded Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised shares of Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Trading Down 2.1%

The company’s fifty day moving average is $171.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $192.68. 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 market cap of $137.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.39, a PEG ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. The company’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. On average, research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. 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 payout ratio is 20.37%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Salesforce by 0.3% during 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 last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings 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 worth $13,286,909,000 after buying an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP increased its position 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 period. Capital International Investors raised its stake in Salesforce by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Salesforce Company 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.