First Bancorp Inc ME Makes New $452,000 Investment in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

First Bancorp Inc ME bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 2,887 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $452,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Swiss RE Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Dogwood Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 285.7% in the fourth quarter. Dogwood Wealth Management LLC now owns 108 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 80 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to see upside: Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed a “buy” rating with a $225 price target, Citizens JMP maintained “market outperform” with a $315 target, and BTIG reiterated “buy” with a $255 target. These targets imply that the recent pullback has created potential valuation upside. Analyst rating updates
• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption and Salesforce’s expanding AI ecosystem are expected to support subscription growth. New integrations from ZoomInfo and Agiloft on the AgentExchange marketplace also suggest that third-party developers are increasingly using Salesforce and Slack AI workflows, strengthening the company’s platform moat. CRM Q2 earnings preview AgentExchange ecosystem
• Neutral Sentiment: Jefferies expects an in-line fiscal second quarter. Its survey of 20 Salesforce partners was moderately encouraging, with 70% reporting results at or above plan, but investors are likely to focus more heavily on management’s second-half growth outlook and Agentforce monetization. Jefferies Salesforce outlook
• Negative Sentiment: The earnings setup leaves little room for disappointment: Salesforce is expected to post roughly 10.6% revenue growth, while analysts want evidence that slower sales growth is reaccelerating. The stock is also testing technical resistance near $210, and broader caution toward technology shares may be limiting buying ahead of the report.

Salesforce Stock Down 1.6%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $146.32 and a 12-month high of $269.11. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $176.11 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $181.49. The stock has a market capitalization of $168.50 billion, a PE ratio of 23.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date 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 currently 20.37%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Monness Crespi & Hardt increased their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $222.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. Wedbush started coverage on Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an “outperform” rating for the company. UBS Group increased their price target on Salesforce from $185.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 12th. Citigroup restated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays raised shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $248.72.

Salesforce 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.