Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Down 2% – Should You Sell?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price fell 2% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $249.60 and last traded at $250.6360. 9,302,059 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 34% from the average session volume of 13,999,767 shares. The stock had previously closed at $255.65.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Long-term revenue outlook exceeded expectations. At Dreamforce, Salesforce projected fiscal 2030 revenue of more than $63 billion, supported by accelerating demand for artificial intelligence and data products. The forecast helped 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 price targets across the board. Stifel and Canaccord lifted their targets to $300, while BMO raised its target to $285 and Wells Fargo increased its target to $250. The upgrades reflect expectations that Agentforce, data products, and other enterprise AI offerings can drive a re-rating of CRM. Six Analysts Turn Bullish on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: AI ecosystem momentum is expanding. Salesforce announced integrations involving Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI, Nvidia, Slack, and Snap. Agentforce annual recurring revenue reportedly reached $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year, while net new annual order value growth reached a four-year high.
• Neutral Sentiment: Options activity signals increased speculative interest. Traders bought approximately 253,000 CRM call options, about 171% above typical daily call volume. The activity may indicate bullish positioning, but it does not guarantee sustained buying in the stock.
• Negative Sentiment: Execution and monetization concerns remain. Partner checks were positive on demand but mixed on pricing, and analysts continue to question how quickly Agentforce and Claude integrations will translate into Salesforce revenue. Reports also noted that Agentforce’s return on investment remains an open issue.
• Negative Sentiment: A service outage created an unwelcome headline during Dreamforce. The disruption affected access to parts of Salesforce’s cloud software suite, raising concerns about reliability and adding pressure while the company promotes AI-powered enterprise applications. Salesforce stock falls as service outage hits during crucial conference

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on CRM shares. Roth Capital restated a “buy” rating and set a $325.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. HSBC increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday. Finally, Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $275.14.

Salesforce Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $200.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.18, a PEG ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.20. The company’s fifty day moving average is $207.43 and its 200 day moving average is $188.91. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The firm had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.91 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. 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, equities research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 17th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 16.04%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Salesforce 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 completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CRM. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $1,914,086,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at about $927,332,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

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.