California Public Employees Retirement System Grows Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

California Public Employees Retirement System raised its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 26.5% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,502,236 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 524,345 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System owned about 0.26% of Salesforce worth $593,030,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. bought a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $27,000. Marquette Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX bought a new stake in Salesforce during the third quarter worth about $28,000. Country Trust Bank boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 658.8% in the 2nd quarter. Country Trust Bank now owns 129 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 112 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kilter Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $42,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce is rolling out Agentforce, its contact-center-as-a-service push aimed at replacing fragmented contact-center stacks—this could deepen wallet-share with large enterprise customers and support growth in CRM-adjacent services. Salesforce Aims to End the ‘Frankenstein’ Contact Center With Agentforce
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce added six Agentforce Health agents pre-wired with integrations for healthcare workflows—strengthens vertical product shelf and could accelerate adoption in a high-value industry. Salesforce Announces Six New Agentforce Health Agents Pre-Wired With Rich Integrations
• Positive Sentiment: Management intends to use net proceeds from the $25B senior-note offering to fund buybacks—this can be EPS-accretive and supports shareholder returns if repurchases are executed. Salesforce Prices Public Offering of Senior Notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst roundups following Salesforce’s fiscal Q4 results highlight mixed views—earnings beat and guidance were solid, but some analysts remain cautious on valuation and AI execution risk. What are Analysts Thinking of Salesforce (CRM) Following Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2026 Results?
• Neutral Sentiment: Formal notice that the $25B notes have been priced is a factual development—markets are focused on coupon levels and close conditions. Salesforce Prices Public Offering of Senior Notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Competitive ecosystem moves: LivePerson launched integrations that work with Salesforce, underscoring partner/competitor dynamics in conversational AI and contact-center orchestration. LivePerson Announces Event-driven Orchestration Partnership with Coral Active
• Negative Sentiment: Market commentary warns investors demanded higher yields on the bond sale—Zacks flags caution around rising leverage and AI uncertainty, which can pressure multiples and sentiment. Salesforce Taps Bonds for Buybacks as Investors Demand More Yield
• Negative Sentiment: Recent analyst downgrade(s) and at least one pessimistic price forecast have added selling pressure and negative sentiment near term. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Down 2% on Analyst Downgrade Northland Securities Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on CRM shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on Salesforce from $340.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Macquarie Infrastructure increased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $235.00 to $210.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $282.06.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $192.63 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $174.57 and a one year high of $296.05. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $210.48 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $235.09. The stock has a market capitalization of $177.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 1.29.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.78 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. Analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.54%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other news, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $258.64 per share, with a total value of $500,727.04. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 10,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. The trade was a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at $1,742,271.30. The trade was a 34.78% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

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.