Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 2.3% – Here’s What Happened

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s share price shot up 2.3% on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $172.38 and last traded at $169.4110. Approximately 13,010,935 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 7% from the average session volume of 13,976,378 shares. The stock had previously closed at $165.65.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on CRM. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. UBS Group initiated coverage on Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an “overweight” rating on the stock. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Wedbush started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an “outperform” rating on the stock. Finally, Northland Securities cut their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $267.00 to $229.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 10th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Trading Up 2.3%

The company’s 50-day moving average is $173.23 and its 200 day moving average is $197.31. The firm has a market cap of $138.75 billion, a PE ratio of 19.61, a P/E/G ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. 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, sell-side analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Salesforce by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,800,353,000 after buying an additional 270,913 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Salesforce by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 13.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,751,073,000 after buying an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.