Invst LLC Buys New Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Invst LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 5,287 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $828,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth $25,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Swiss RE Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Dogwood Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Salesforce by 285.7% during the 4th quarter. Dogwood Wealth Management LLC now owns 108 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have commented on CRM. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Truist Financial lowered shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. DA Davidson lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 20th. Finally, Susquehanna started coverage on Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $248.72.

Salesforce Stock Down 1.6%

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $168.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.81, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $176.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $181.49. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. Salesforce’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.58 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to see upside: Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed a “buy” rating with a $225 price target, Citizens JMP maintained “market outperform” with a $315 target, and BTIG reiterated “buy” with a $255 target. These targets imply that the recent pullback has created potential valuation upside. Analyst rating updates
• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption and Salesforce’s expanding AI ecosystem are expected to support subscription growth. New integrations from ZoomInfo and Agiloft on the AgentExchange marketplace also suggest that third-party developers are increasingly using Salesforce and Slack AI workflows, strengthening the company’s platform moat. CRM Q2 earnings preview AgentExchange ecosystem
• Neutral Sentiment: Jefferies expects an in-line fiscal second quarter. Its survey of 20 Salesforce partners was moderately encouraging, with 70% reporting results at or above plan, but investors are likely to focus more heavily on management’s second-half growth outlook and Agentforce monetization. Jefferies Salesforce outlook
• Negative Sentiment: The earnings setup leaves little room for disappointment: Salesforce is expected to post roughly 10.6% revenue growth, while analysts want evidence that slower sales growth is reaccelerating. The stock is also testing technical resistance near $210, and broader caution toward technology shares may be limiting buying ahead of the report.

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.