Wedbush Fund Advisers LLC Purchases 46,568 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Wedbush Fund Advisers LLC lifted its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 30.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 201,145 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 46,568 shares during the quarter. Salesforce comprises approximately 2.8% of Wedbush Fund Advisers LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 20th largest position. Wedbush Fund Advisers LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $31,511,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of CRM. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Salesforce during the second quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its stake in Salesforce by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Salesforce by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

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.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on CRM. Citigroup reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley reissued an “equal weight” rating and issued a $185.00 price objective (down from $287.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Macquarie Infrastructure lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada cut shares of Salesforce from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Two research 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 assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $248.72.

Salesforce Trading Down 1.6%

Salesforce stock opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $176.11 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $181.49. 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 Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11. The stock has a market cap of $168.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for 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%.Salesforce’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.58 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

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.