Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 1.8% – Here’s Why

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) rose 1.8% on Wednesday. The stock traded as high as $241.12 and last traded at $237.5670. 11,464,650 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 18% from the average daily volume of 14,023,848 shares. The stock had previously closed at $233.28.

Trending Headlines about Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s stake in Anthropic could provide strategic and financial optionality as demand for enterprise AI grows. The investment may also help support Salesforce’s ability to manage its substantial share-repurchase financing commitments. Salesforce: Anthropic Stake Gives Optionality To Retire $25 Billion Share Repurchase Debt
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s AIforce strategy, which is designed to work across multiple AI providers, along with Agentforce and Data Cloud adoption, could strengthen its position as an enterprise AI platform. Partnerships involving AWS and Google Cloud add ecosystem support. Can Salesforce’s New AIforce Layer Deepen Its Ecosystem Moat and Monetization Story for CRM?
• Positive Sentiment: Wells Fargo raised its price target, citing customer interest in Agentforce and the possibility that approximately $1.5 billion in Agentforce annual recurring revenue could help reaccelerate growth. A separate investor commentary remains bullish on Salesforce’s data and workflow assets as inputs for AI models. Wells Fargo Raises Salesforce’s Price Target
• Neutral Sentiment: Jefferies reaffirmed its Buy rating, while comparisons with Zendesk and Salesforce’s Agents for Impact program provide additional visibility but are unlikely to materially change near-term earnings expectations. Salesforce vs. Zendesk Sell Comparison
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest results showed better-than-expected earnings and roughly 11% year-over-year revenue growth, but post-earnings performance has remained weak, suggesting investors want clearer evidence that AI will translate into faster growth and monetization. Why Is Salesforce Down Since Its Last Earnings Report?
• Negative Sentiment: Security researchers identified three Agentforce vulnerabilities that could enable zero-click CRM data theft and AI-agent impersonation. The findings raise reputational, customer-trust, remediation, and regulatory risks for Salesforce’s central AI growth strategy. Zero-Click Vulnerabilities in Salesforce Agentforce Expose Wider AI Agent Risk

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently commented on CRM. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $236.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. HC Wainwright lowered shares of Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, September 18th. Finally, B. Riley Financial upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have given a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $275.14.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of $192.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.31, a P/E/G ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.20. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $214.26 and its two-hundred day moving average is $190.30. The company has a current ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%.The company had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.91 EPS. Salesforce’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.04%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director David Blair Kirk bought 4,176 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 18th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 18,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,486,958.84. This represents a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total transaction of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 11.9% in the second quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 43,398 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $6,790,000 after purchasing an additional 4,618 shares during the last quarter. Andra AP fonden boosted its stake in Salesforce by 4,855.1% during the second quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 168,472 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $26,393,000 after buying an additional 165,072 shares during the last quarter. Security National Bank of Sioux City Iowa IA purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $52,000. Wellington Altus USA Inc. increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 117.2% in the 2nd quarter. Wellington Altus USA Inc. now owns 315 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $49,000 after acquiring an additional 170 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Anchor Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 184.5% in the 2nd quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC now owns 17,983 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,817,000 after acquiring an additional 11,663 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Salesforce

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.