Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) Sees Large Drop in Short Interest

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest in the month of July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totaling 29,406,370 shares, a drop of 36.7% from the July 15th total of 46,465,690 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 13,243,191 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.2 days. Approximately 3.7% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $181,143,000 after acquiring an additional 24,332 shares in the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% during the 4th quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,608,000 after acquiring an additional 7,871 shares in the last quarter. Fluent Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $2,265,000. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC bought a new position in Salesforce during the first quarter worth $1,004,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 2.5% during the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 127,739 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,846,000 after purchasing an additional 3,125 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Up 2.8%

Shares of NYSE CRM traded up $5.31 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $196.28. 14,142,050 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 13,701,377. The company has a market capitalization of $160.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $171.58 and its 200 day moving average price is $181.69. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce has a twelve month low of $146.32 and a twelve month high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. The business’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. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

CRM has been the subject of several research reports. Macquarie Infrastructure decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Raymond James Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. Phillip Securities cut shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research report on Monday, June 29th. Monness Crespi & Hardt increased their price target on Salesforce from $200.00 to $222.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 13th. Finally, Barclays raised Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Buy rating, eighteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.49.

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.