Yousif Capital Management LLC Decreases Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Yousif Capital Management LLC reduced its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 4.7% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 110,863 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 5,467 shares during the period. Yousif Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $26,274,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.0% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 88,823,481 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $24,221,275,000 after acquiring an additional 909,853 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 1.6% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 49,260,918 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,452,998,000 after purchasing an additional 776,300 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 0.6% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,873,900 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,669,224,000 after purchasing an additional 114,504 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Salesforce during the second quarter valued at $2,826,049,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 6.9% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 9,258,518 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,484,616,000 after buying an additional 600,386 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.8%

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $264.56 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $247.25 and its 200-day moving average price is $251.65. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $221.96 and a 12-month high of $367.09. The company has a market cap of $247.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.32, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.25.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th will be given a $0.416 dividend. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 18th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.16%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Marc Benioff sold 122 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $259.00, for a total transaction of $31,598.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at $3,085,096,889. The trade was a 0.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $258.64 per share, for a total transaction of $500,727.04. Following the acquisition, the director owned 10,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. This represents a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 170,784 shares of company stock worth $40,538,939 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on CRM. KeyCorp dropped their price target on Salesforce from $440.00 to $400.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 4th. Bank of America dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, November 17th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on shares of Salesforce from $275.00 to $265.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, September 4th. Truist Financial lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $400.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $326.68.

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.