Occidental Asset Management LLC Increases Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Occidental Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 80.5% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 25,708 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 11,462 shares during the period. Occidental Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $6,093,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,826,049,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in Salesforce by 27,361.5% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,424,169 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $933,737,000 after buying an additional 3,411,700 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Salesforce by 1,729.6% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 1,973,141 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $538,020,000 after buying an additional 1,865,297 shares in the last quarter. Amundi raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 26.2% in the second quarter. Amundi now owns 7,755,317 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,087,545,000 after acquiring an additional 1,612,413 shares during the period. Finally, Schroder Investment Management Group boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 45.8% during the 2nd quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 3,931,945 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,072,202,000 after acquiring an additional 1,234,969 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Enterprise validation for Agentforce — World Economic Forum will use an Agentforce‑powered assistant at Davos, boosting visibility for Salesforce’s agentic platform and enterprise adoption case. World Economic Forum and Salesforce Empower Global Leaders
• Positive Sentiment: Commercial expansion in healthcare — Viz.ai announced a real‑time clinical intelligence integration for Agentforce Life Sciences, which can increase addressable market and use‑case monetization if adoption scales. Viz.ai and Salesforce Collaborate
• Positive Sentiment: Product traction and bullish commentary — Slackbot revamp is generally available and on‑air analysts/guests (Phil Palumbo) call Salesforce “nothing broken” about its business at a discounted price, supporting a recovery narrative. Salesforce makes revamped Slackbot generally available Palumbo video
• Neutral Sentiment: Large institutional holders remain heavily invested (Vanguard, State Street, etc.), which provides ownership stability but is not an immediate catalyst.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst and valuation write‑ups note attractive long‑term cash‑flow multiples and Agentforce upside; useful for longer‑term investors but not a short‑term trigger. Seeking Alpha piece
• Negative Sentiment: Unusually heavy put buying — roughly 157k put contracts traded (about +144% vs. normal), a direct bearish signal that likely amplified selling and hedging flows intraday.
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling — Director Neelie Kroes sold ~3,893 shares (~$929k) on Jan. 14; insider sales often add short‑term pressure even when not indicative of company fundamentals. SEC Form 4
• Negative Sentiment: Sector/AI fears — coverage and headlines (e.g., “Claude Code” and MarketBeat pieces) argue agentic AI could cannibalize high‑margin human‑driven SaaS revenue, fueling sentiment that CRM names may lose licensing growth. AOL: Why Salesforce stock is already down MarketBeat: 3 Stocks to Avoid

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on CRM shares. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. BTIG Research started coverage on Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, December 16th. They set a “buy” rating and a $335.00 target price for the company. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 9th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $400.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $225.00 to $235.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $324.51.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $227.10 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $249.36 and a 200-day simple moving average of $250.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $212.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.69 and a beta of 1.26. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $221.96 and a 52 week high of $367.09.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.86 by $0.39. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 14.41%. The company had revenue of $10.26 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.27 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.41 EPS. Salesforce’s revenue was up 9.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th were given a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.16%.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other news, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the transaction, the director owned 7,299 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. The trade was a 34.78% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Marc Benioff sold 2,250 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $258.20, for a total transaction of $580,950.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 11,911,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,075,567,632.20. The trade was a 0.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 152,177 shares of company stock valued at $36,015,774 in the last three months. Company insiders own 3.00% 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.