Korea Investment CORP Makes New Investment in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Korea Investment CORP bought a new position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm bought 531,527 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $83,269,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd lifted its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares during the period. SFE Investment Counsel grew its holdings in Salesforce by 82.7% during the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $4,608,000 after acquiring an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Fluent Financial LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at approximately $2,265,000. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,004,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 2.5% in the 1st quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 127,739 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,846,000 after purchasing an additional 3,125 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Favorable earnings setup: Oppenheimer and other analysts see potential upside from Salesforce’s upcoming results, while market expectations point to a possible post-earnings move toward the stock’s highest level since January. Salesforce Faces Favorable Second-Quarter Setup With Upside Potential How Much Salesforce Stock Is Expected to Move After Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $228 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating and set a $250 target. The calls reflect confidence that Salesforce can capture demand for next-generation AI-powered, “agentic” enterprise workflows. Cantor Fitzgerald Salesforce Analyst Comment
• Positive Sentiment: Growth and capital returns: Zacks characterizes Salesforce as a strong growth stock, while a report highlights a record $27 billion quarterly share repurchase program. Buybacks could support earnings per share and signal that management views the shares as undervalued. Why Salesforce Is a Strong Growth Stock Salesforce Record Stock Buybacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Results are the next catalyst: Analysts are focused on revenue, EPS, and operating metrics for the quarter ended July 2026. Salesforce previously reported $11.13 billion of quarterly revenue, up 13.3% year over year, and EPS of $3.88, above consensus. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Estimates
• Neutral Sentiment: AI platform positioning: Coverage comparing Salesforce with ServiceNow suggests investors are rotating toward enterprise application software as AI investment broadens beyond hardware. Salesforce’s Headless 360 strategy and the Agiloft integration on AgentExchange offer additional evidence of ecosystem expansion. Salesforce Versus ServiceNow
• Negative Sentiment: Risks remain: The buybacks were funded partly with $25 billion of new debt, increasing leverage and interest obligations. Separate commentary questions whether Salesforce could become a value trap if growth slows or AI monetization disappoints. Salesforce Value Trap Analysis

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. KeyCorp downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Macquarie Infrastructure cut their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Citizens Jmp reiterated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Truist Financial cut Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $249.87.

Salesforce Stock Up 1.8%

CRM opened at $209.20 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $171.33 billion, a PE ratio of 24.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $146.32 and a twelve month high of $269.11. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $174.33 and a 200 day moving average price of $181.56. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce’s 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. Sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share 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 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

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.