Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 1.8% – Should You Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price was up 1.8% on Wednesday. The stock traded as high as $218.23 and last traded at $217.3520. 6,187,291 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 52% from the average session volume of 13,012,349 shares. The stock had previously closed at $213.48.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CRM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wolfe Research upgraded Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Morgan Stanley set a $315.00 target price on Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. TD Cowen started coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, October 12th. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. Freedom Broker boosted their price target on Salesforce from $230.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. Finally, Zacks Research raised Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 3rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have assigned a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $278.98.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.8%

The firm has a market cap of $178.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $237.80 and its 200-day moving average price is $198.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly 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 for 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 company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last 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. Equities analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 4,176 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 18th. The stock was bought at an average price of $239.33 per share, for a total transaction of $999,442.08. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 18,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,486,958.84. The trade was a 28.66% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

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

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.