Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Down 6.2% – Should You Sell?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRMGet Free Report)’s share price traded down 6.2% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $208.78 and last traded at $213.9320. 18,409,077 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 93% from the average session volume of 9,538,588 shares. The stock had previously closed at $227.96.

Salesforce News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 9th. Finally, BTIG Research started coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, December 16th. They set a “buy” rating and a $335.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $324.51.

Read Our Latest Analysis on Salesforce

Salesforce Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $200.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $247.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $248.09. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 18th were given a dividend of $0.416 per share. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 18th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 22.16%.

Insider Activity

In other Salesforce news, 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 value of $580,950.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 11,911,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,075,567,632.20. This trade represents a 0.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director G Mason Morfit acquired 96,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 5th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $260.58 per share, with a total value of $25,015,680.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 2,994,509 shares in the company, valued at $780,309,155.22. The trade was a 3.31% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 140,927 shares of company stock valued at $33,146,979 over the last quarter. 3.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Eagle Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth approximately $903,000. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA grew its stake in Salesforce by 2.1% during the 4th quarter. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA now owns 60,859 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $16,122,000 after buying an additional 1,242 shares during the last quarter. RMR Wealth Builders increased its position in Salesforce by 30.1% in the fourth quarter. RMR Wealth Builders now owns 10,520 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,787,000 after buying an additional 2,431 shares during the period. Anchyra Partners LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $523,000. Finally, Aprio Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 11.5% during the fourth quarter. Aprio Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,960 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,049,000 after acquiring an additional 409 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

(Get Free Report)

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.

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