Brokerages Set Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) Target Price at $257.97

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) has received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-nine research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have assigned a hold recommendation, twenty-seven have issued a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $259.2571.

CRM has been the topic of several research reports. Piper Sandler lowered shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $225.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest quarter was strong, with revenue of $11.13 billion, EPS of $3.88, and AI/data ARR rising to $3.4 billion; Agentforce alone reached $1.2 billion in ARR, reinforcing the company’s AI growth story and supporting the bullish case. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Erste Group Bank raised its earnings expectations for Salesforce, estimating FY2027 EPS at $10.17 and FY2028 EPS at $11.07, which suggests confidence in longer-term profitability. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce is getting renewed attention from market watchers, and several articles highlight that its AI pivot and low valuation could attract investors if execution continues to improve. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce is also being discussed in the context of broader software-sector weakness, with investors favoring AI infrastructure and chip names over traditional subscription software. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Salesforce announced another round of layoffs tied to its AI and Marketing Cloud teams, signaling restructuring pressure as it shifts toward AI-focused and usage-based monetization models. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Several reports note that CRM shares are near 52-week lows as investors worry the market is rotating away from legacy software names, keeping pressure on the stock despite solid fundamentals. Article Title

Salesforce Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of NYSE:CRM opened at $166.07 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $136.01 billion, a PE ratio of 19.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $180.10 and a 200 day simple moving average of $206.89. Salesforce has a 52 week low of $161.40 and a 52 week high of $276.80.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Salesforce will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber purchased 2,571 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at $1,854,347.40. This trade represents a 36.94% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 2,570 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $194.62 per share, for a total transaction of $500,173.40. Following the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at $2,664,153.18. The trade was a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

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.