13,110 Salesforce Inc. $CRM Shares Acquired by PBU The Pension Fund of Early Childhood & Youth Educators

PBU The Pension Fund of Early Childhood & Youth Educators increased its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 9.4% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 151,960 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 13,110 shares during the quarter. Salesforce comprises approximately 0.8% of PBU The Pension Fund of Early Childhood & Youth Educators’ investment portfolio, making the stock its 27th biggest position. PBU The Pension Fund of Early Childhood & Youth Educators’ holdings in Salesforce were worth $34,885,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at $11,396,844,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth $1,914,086,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth $927,332,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth $844,928,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on CRM. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, October 20th. Stephens reissued an “equal weight” rating and issued a $289.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, September 18th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Salesforce from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Thursday, September 24th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have given a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $278.98.

Salesforce Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of CRM opened at $217.38 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The business’s fifty day moving average is $236.19 and its 200-day moving average is $198.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84. The firm has a market cap of $178.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.82, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.24.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.91 EPS. Salesforce’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 17th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 16.04%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director David Blair Kirk bought 4,176 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 18,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,486,958.84. The trade was a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total transaction of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud-based software company best known for customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Its platform helps businesses manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce and customer data, and includes products such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud and Agentforce. The company also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data analytics and visualization, and MuleSoft for connecting applications and data. Salesforce’s products are used by organizations across a range of industries and are available to customers around the world.