Salesforce Inc. $CRM Stock: Ritholtz Wealth Management Grows Holdings

Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 51.4% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 22,990 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,808 shares during the quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $5,278,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% in the third quarter. UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp now owns 58,674 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,470,000 after buying an additional 3,098 shares during the period. Cherokee Insurance Co acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the third quarter worth approximately $207,000. First Command Advisory Services Inc. grew its position in Salesforce by 21.3% during the third quarter. First Command Advisory Services Inc. now owns 1,080 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $248,000 after buying an additional 190 shares in the last quarter. Silver Grove Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in Salesforce by 11.0% during the 3rd quarter. Silver Grove Financial Group Inc. now owns 687 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $158,000 after acquiring an additional 68 shares during the period. Finally, Northbridge Financial Group LLC increased its stake in Salesforce by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Northbridge Financial Group LLC now owns 7,341 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,652,000 after acquiring an additional 54 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Guggenheim lifted their price objective on Salesforce from $270.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 17th. Barclays lowered Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “positive” rating in a report on Monday, October 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 27th. DA Davidson raised their price target on Salesforce from $225.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 21st. Finally, Truist Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 price target (up from $280.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have assigned a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $278.98.

Salesforce Price Performance

Salesforce stock opened at $217.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $146.32 and a 52 week high of $269.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $236.19 and a 200-day moving average of $198.42.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.91 earnings per share. 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. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 16.04%.

Insider Transactions at Salesforce

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the director directly owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at $1,416,936.57. This represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 4,176 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 18th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the purchase, the director owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at $4,486,958.84. The trade was a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud-based software company best known for customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Its platform helps businesses manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce and customer data, and includes products such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud and Agentforce. The company also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data analytics and visualization, and MuleSoft for connecting applications and data. Salesforce’s products are used by organizations across a range of industries and are available to customers around the world.