Arizona State Retirement System Sells 35,403 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Arizona State Retirement System cut its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 221,319 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 35,403 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $34,672,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC bought a new position in Salesforce during the second quarter worth $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new stake in Salesforce during the second quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC grew its holdings in Salesforce by 410.3% during the 1st quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 119 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:CRM traded down $10.21 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $249.03. The company had a trading volume of 16,186,912 shares, compared to its average volume of 14,091,925. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $193.90 and its 200-day moving average price is $185.49. The firm has a market cap of $204.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.70, a PEG ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 1.20.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. The company had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%.Salesforce’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.91 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 16.04%.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total transaction of $1,172,745.00. Following the sale, the director owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 3.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on CRM. HC Wainwright downgraded Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. HSBC increased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their target price on Salesforce from $210.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on Salesforce from $236.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $266.50.

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.