Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Cut to Hold at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen cut shares of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Saturday morning.

Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein cut their price target on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Guggenheim upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, June 12th. KeyCorp downgraded Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th. Finally, Wedbush assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.2%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $186.20 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $152.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.55, a PEG ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.16. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $170.46 and a 200 day simple moving average of $184.10. Salesforce has a 52 week low of $146.32 and a 52 week high of $269.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm 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%.The firm’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior 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. On average, research analysts predict that Salesforce will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fred Alger Management LLC lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 14,943 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $3,548,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares in the last quarter. Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. now owns 4,239 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,123,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. now owns 6,186 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,639,000 after purchasing an additional 47 shares during the period. Synergy Financial Group LTD raised its holdings in Salesforce by 2.4% in the third quarter. Synergy Financial Group LTD now owns 2,035 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $482,000 after buying an additional 48 shares during the period. Finally, Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 6.9% in the 4th quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 745 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $197,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.