Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Gap Down – Here’s What Happened

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price gapped down before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $166.58, but opened at $158.33. Salesforce shares last traded at $162.0170, with a volume of 2,472,463 shares.

Salesforce News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CRM has been the topic of several research reports. BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $255.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Citigroup raised Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.18. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $171.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is $194.51. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.58 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. 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, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Salesforce Company Profile

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.