Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 1.8% on Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) rose 1.8% during trading on Friday after Wolfe Research upgraded the stock from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating. The company traded as high as $263.53 and last traded at $256.60. 34,281,880 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 144% from the average session volume of 14,030,075 shares. The stock had previously closed at $252.05.

A number of other research firms also recently issued reports on CRM. Canaccord Genuity Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday. Daiwa Securities Group lowered their price target on Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $400.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday. Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, KeyCorp cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $261.15.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Beat-and-raise results improved the growth outlook. Salesforce reported fiscal Q2 revenue of $11.35 billion, up 10.8% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $5.90 versus the $3.27 consensus estimate. Management raised fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $46.1 billion-$46.4 billion and EPS guidance to $16.67-$16.71, while Q3 EPS guidance also exceeded expectations. Salesforce raises annual revenue forecasts on AI product momentum
• Positive Sentiment: Operating indicators suggest a potential organic reacceleration. Remaining performance obligations accelerated 14% in constant currency, free cash flow increased 81%, and Agentforce/Data 360 annual recurring revenue approached $3.9 billion. Investors viewed these figures as evidence that AI is supplementing, rather than rapidly displacing, Salesforce’s core software business. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Call Focuses on AI-Led Reacceleration
• Positive Sentiment: Anthropic partnership strengthened Salesforce’s AI narrative. The new “Claudeforce” initiative integrates Anthropic’s Claude with Salesforce data, workflows, governance and Agentforce, including Salesforce functionality inside Claude. The announcement helped ease “SaaSpocalypse” concerns and positioned CRM as a potential beneficiary of enterprise AI adoption. Salesforce and Anthropic Announce Claudeforce
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment improved but remains mixed. Wolfe Research upgraded CRM to “strong buy,” while Truist raised its target to $300 and Needham maintained a $400 target. However, several firms retained neutral or equal-weight ratings, with targets below the recently traded level, indicating valuation and execution concerns remain.
• Negative Sentiment: Quarterly profit benefited materially from investment gains. Strategic investment gains, including approximately $2.7 billion related to Salesforce’s Anthropic stake, contributed about $2.53 of the $5.90 adjusted EPS. This makes the headline earnings beat less reflective of recurring operating performance and could limit the stock’s upside if gains are not repeated. Salesforce Stock Just Soared. Thank Anthropic.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

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

Salesforce Trading Up 1.8%

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 firm has a market capitalization of $210.16 billion, a PE ratio of 23.39, a P/E/G ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $179.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $182.03.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. The firm had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 23.35%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.91 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.