Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Up 4.7% – Should You Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded up 4.7% during trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $260.18 and last traded at $259.2920. 12,868,689 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 8% from the average session volume of 14,038,386 shares. The stock had previously closed at $247.72.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Koa AI model strengthens Agentforce strategy: Salesforce and NVIDIA introduced Koa, a CRM-specific reasoning model built on NVIDIA Nemotron. The model is designed to help AI agents handle complex, multistep enterprise workflows and could improve Salesforce’s competitive position in business-focused AI. Announcing Koa: Salesforce’s First CRM Reasoning Model
• Positive Sentiment: Broader AI ecosystem and distribution: Salesforce is expanding integrations with AWS and Google Cloud, while Siemens, Outreach, Copado and Brillio are extending Agentforce into industrial, revenue, development and enterprise workflows. These partnerships may increase adoption and customer spending. Salesforce launches AIforce
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts see potential for renewed growth: Supportive coverage points to Salesforce’s large enterprise customer base, rapidly expanding Agentforce activity and relatively moderate forward valuation as potential catalysts. A consensus “Moderate Buy” rating also provides support. Salesforce: Its AI Distribution Advantage Could Restart Growth
• Neutral Sentiment: AIforce and model choice headline Dreamforce: Salesforce is promoting an interface layer intended to let users work through AI agents rather than traditional CRM navigation, while its partnerships give customers more flexibility in selecting AI models. The long-term revenue impact remains unproven.
• Negative Sentiment: Service outage raises reliability concerns: On the second day of Dreamforce, Salesforce warned that users could experience severe delays, intermittent errors or an inability to access some services. The disruption is particularly unfavorable while the company is marketing always-on AI agents. Salesforce Service Outages Strike on Day 2 of Dreamforce Conference
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and monetization risks remain: Salesforce trades near its 52-week high, while most sales and service users have not upgraded to premium editions required for some AI features. Investors are also watching slower projected free-cash-flow growth, which could limit upside if Agentforce adoption does not accelerate. Can CRM Stock Justify $260 While Its Cash Engine Cools Off?

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $240.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Salesforce from $205.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised their price target on Salesforce from $222.00 to $266.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $267.12.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $204.13 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $188.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $210.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.28, a P/E/G ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous 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. On average, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 17th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 16.04%.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CRM. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Salesforce by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its stake in Salesforce by 13.5% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 19,672,684 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,211,515,000 after purchasing an additional 2,347,478 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Company Profile

Salesforce, Inc is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) technology and related enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, data analytics and business operations through subscription-based software and cloud services.

The company’s product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud and the Salesforce Platform. Salesforce also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data visualization and analytics, MuleSoft for application integration, and artificial intelligence capabilities, including its Agentforce platform for building and deploying AI agents.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and serves businesses and organizations across a broad range of industries and geographic markets worldwide.