Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading 5.9% Higher – Still a Buy?

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) were up 5.9% during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $176.95 and last traded at $173.3390. 16,354,564 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 19% from the average daily volume of 13,795,223 shares. The stock had previously closed at $163.66.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on CRM shares. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Raymond James Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, June 6th. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, June 16th. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered shares of Salesforce from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, sixteen have given a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $170.00 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $186.08. The stock has a market cap of $154.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.18. 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 earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Ballast Inc. increased its stake in Salesforce by 54.0% during the second quarter. Ballast Inc. now owns 9,737 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,525,000 after acquiring an additional 3,415 shares during the period. Regent Peak Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 12.8% in the 2nd quarter. Regent Peak Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,383 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $217,000 after acquiring an additional 157 shares during the period. Butensky & Cohen Financial Security Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,941,000. Tema ETFs LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 10.6% during the 2nd quarter. Tema ETFs LLC now owns 19,635 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $3,076,000 after purchasing an additional 1,885 shares in the last quarter. Finally, West Branch Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 37.4% during the second quarter. West Branch Capital LLC now owns 426 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $67,000 after purchasing an additional 116 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.