Deane Retirement Strategies Inc. Takes $4.63 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Deane Retirement Strategies Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund purchased 19,518 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $4,634,000. Salesforce accounts for about 2.0% of Deane Retirement Strategies Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 25th largest position.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of CRM. Painted Porch Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 260.0% during the 2nd quarter. Painted Porch Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 65 shares in the last quarter. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new position in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $27,000. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC raised its position in Salesforce by 314.8% in the first quarter. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 112 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 383.3% during the second quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc now owns 116 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 92 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Maseco LLP bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $34,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the subject of a number of research reports. Northland Capmk lowered shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 14th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $400.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Salesforce from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 9th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $375.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $326.68.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $264.56 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $247.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.25. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $247.25 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $251.65. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $221.96 and a 12 month high of $367.09.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.86 by $0.39. The firm had revenue of $10.26 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.27 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 17.91%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.41 EPS. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 18th will be paid a $0.416 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.6%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 22.16%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Parker Harris sold 134,662 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $234.70, for a total transaction of $31,605,171.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 139,767 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $32,803,314.90. This trade represents a 49.07% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Marc Benioff sold 2,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $252.28, for a total transaction of $567,630.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,005,051,131.88. This represents a 0.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders have sold 170,784 shares of company stock worth $40,538,939. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

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.