Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Down 2.7% – Here’s Why

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) shares traded down 2.7% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $195.32 and last traded at $195.8590. 8,229,490 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 40% from the average daily volume of 13,679,818 shares. The stock had previously closed at $201.37.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies more than 24% upside from recent levels. JPMorgan bullish Salesforce coverage
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its Salesforce price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating. UBS and Wells Fargo also reportedly forecast strong appreciation, reinforcing improving sell-side sentiment. Monness Crespi Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s Agentforce platform is gaining traction, giving the company a way to use its large CRM customer base to compete with Microsoft and Oracle in enterprise “agentic” AI. Salesforce agentic AI analysis
• Positive Sentiment: A Seeking Alpha analysis argues that Salesforce’s $27.1 billion share-repurchase program, equivalent to an estimated 23% net buyback yield, could support earnings-per-share growth. The stock also appears inexpensive at roughly 14 times forward earnings, although buybacks have increased debt. Salesforce buyback analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce has recently posted strong momentum, with reports noting three consecutive weeks of gains and substantial one-month appreciation. That run may be encouraging investors, but it also raises the possibility of profit-taking.
• Negative Sentiment: Parnassus Investments indicated that Salesforce has lost favor as AI opportunities shift toward competing or substitute technologies. Other commentary likewise warns that alternative software and AI-native tools threaten Salesforce’s traditional CRM franchise. Salesforce AI competition concerns

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CRM. Piper Sandler cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered their price objective on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Barclays raised Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Susquehanna assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. Finally, Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, July 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The company has a market cap of $160.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.67, a P/E/G ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $171.41 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $182.28.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.58 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue 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. As a group, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued 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 dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Magnolia Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth about $799,000. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $69,902,000. Pointe Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $490,000. Odyssean LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,807,000. Finally, Invst LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $828,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.