Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Gap Down – What’s Next?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) gapped down before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $250.54, but opened at $244.18. Salesforce shares last traded at $242.4950, with a volume of 3,800,190 shares traded.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce issued fiscal 2030 revenue guidance of more than $63 billion, exceeding market expectations. Management said accelerating demand for artificial-intelligence and data products is supporting the outlook, helping ease fears that AI could disrupt Salesforce’s core software business. Salesforce issues revenue target of over $63 billion for fiscal 2030
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised their valuations following the long-term outlook: Stifel Nicolaus and Canaccord Genuity lifted price targets to $300 with buy ratings, Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an overweight rating with a $300 target, and BMO Capital Markets raised its target to $285 with an outperform rating. RBC reaffirmed sector perform with a $250 target, while Mizuho raised its target to $280.
• Positive Sentiment: New AI initiatives—including AIForce, the Koa CRM reasoning model developed with NVIDIA, and expanded integrations with Claude, Slack, AWS and OpenAI—could improve Salesforce’s competitive position and increase adoption of Agentforce. Slackbot users reportedly rose more than 150% sequentially. Salesforce unleashes AIForce
• Neutral Sentiment: A $25 billion share repurchase program and unusually heavy call-option activity indicate improved investor sentiment, although options trading is speculative and does not guarantee sustained buying.
• Negative Sentiment: A widespread Salesforce service outage during the Dreamforce conference caused severe delays, intermittent errors and access problems for some customers, raising concerns about reliability and execution. Salesforce Service Outages Strike on Day 2 of Dreamforce Conference
• Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that AI features may require customers to upgrade to premium editions, while slower free-cash-flow growth and the need to convert Salesforce’s large installed base into paying AI users could limit near-term upside.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently issued reports on CRM. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Salesforce from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. CLSA began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, July 20th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price objective for the company. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Salesforce from $265.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $250.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Argus increased their target price on Salesforce from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 31st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have given a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $273.80.

Salesforce Stock Down 3.3%

The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $205.81 and its 200-day moving average price is $188.56. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The company has a market capitalization of $199.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.08, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.20.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its earnings results 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 business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The firm’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $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. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the sale, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 3.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in Salesforce by 35.4% during the fourth quarter. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 199 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares during the period. Krane Funds Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Krane Funds Advisors LLC now owns 8,254 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,187,000 after buying an additional 57 shares during the period. HBW Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 0.4% in the first quarter. HBW Advisory Services LLC now owns 13,098 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,445,000 after buying an additional 57 shares during the period. Prentice Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.8% during the 1st quarter. Prentice Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,274 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $611,000 after acquiring an additional 58 shares during the period. Finally, Focused Wealth Management Inc grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 5.5% during the 1st quarter. Focused Wealth Management Inc now owns 1,126 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $210,000 after acquiring an additional 59 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Company Profile

Salesforce, Inc is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) technology and related enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, data analytics and business operations through subscription-based software and cloud services.

The company’s product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud and the Salesforce Platform. Salesforce also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data visualization and analytics, MuleSoft for application integration, and artificial intelligence capabilities, including its Agentforce platform for building and deploying AI agents.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and serves businesses and organizations across a broad range of industries and geographic markets worldwide.