Kentucky Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co Takes Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Kentucky Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co bought a new position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 16,000 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,507,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,800,353,000 after acquiring an additional 270,913 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during 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 purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% in 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 purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption is accelerating. Salesforce’s Agentforce annual recurring revenue reportedly surged 205%, suggesting rising customer usage and deeper integration of AI agents into its CRM platform. This supports the company’s efforts to remain competitive in enterprise AI. Will Agentforce Help Salesforce Stay Ahead in the Enterprise AI Race?
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce expanded Headless 360 across its portfolio, potentially giving customers more flexible ways to deploy Salesforce data and services across digital channels. Broader product integration could support retention, cross-selling and long-term platform value. Salesforce Expands Headless 360 Across Its Portfolio
• Positive Sentiment: Sector rotation and value interest are supporting CRM. Investors have been moving from semiconductor stocks into underperforming software names, while some analysts characterize Salesforce as attractively valued for long-term investors. Netflix, Salesforce, and Adobe Rally as Investors Rotate
• Neutral Sentiment: The upcoming August 26 earnings report is the next major catalyst. Salesforce recently exceeded quarterly EPS and revenue expectations, but investors will focus on forward guidance, Agentforce monetization and whether growth can reaccelerate. Salesforce Projected to Announce Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Anthropic exposure offers a potential strategic benefit. Salesforce has participated in Anthropic funding rounds and integrates Claude, giving CRM indirect exposure to the enterprise AI company’s reported growth and possible future valuation gains. The Pre-IPO Playbook: How to Cash in on Anthropic Before the Bell
• Negative Sentiment: Near-term earnings expectations remain a risk. Zacks said Salesforce lacks the combination of factors that typically supports a likely earnings beat, raising the possibility of disappointment if guidance or AI-related results fall short. Salesforce Earnings Expected to Grow
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst upgrades have not consistently translated into sustained gains. This keeps the stock dependent on tangible earnings evidence, particularly as investors question whether generative AI could weaken traditional software business models. Analyst upgrades keep failing Salesforce

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CRM has been the topic of several analyst reports. Truist Financial lowered shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Phillip Securities downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research report on Monday, June 29th. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. CLSA assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, July 20th. They set a “hold” rating and a $165.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada lowered Salesforce from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Buy rating, eighteen have issued 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 price target of $249.49.

Salesforce Trading Up 5.0%

CRM stock opened at $205.92 on Thursday. 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 Inc. has a 12-month low of $146.32 and a 12-month high of $269.11. The stock has a market cap of $168.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.83, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The business’s 50-day moving average is $172.69 and its 200 day moving average is $181.41.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last 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. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

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.