Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Jumps 4.5% – Should You Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price traded up 4.5% during mid-day trading on Thursday. The company traded as high as $247.18 and last traded at $246.6620. Approximately 8,708,449 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 36% from the average session volume of 13,576,575 shares. The stock had previously closed at $235.95.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce is benefiting from broad strength in enterprise software, a favorable technical setup and news of a major U.K. deal, reinforcing optimism about demand for its platform. Why Is Salesforce Stock Gaining Thursday?
• Positive Sentiment: Recent analyst upgrades have provided an additional catalyst, with analysts citing Salesforce’s earnings outlook, valuation and potential for further gains. Salesforce Shares Climb on Analyst Upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: ZoomInfo was named a flagship data partner for Salesforce’s Hunter outbound sales agent. The integration of live prospect intelligence into Sales Cloud supports the company’s strategy of embedding AI directly into customer workflows. ZoomInfo Named a Flagship Data Partner for Hunter
• Positive Sentiment: Harris Associates’ Oakmark Fund highlighted Salesforce’s core enterprise software platform and AI integration as part of its investment case, suggesting institutional investors see potential for AI to increase the platform’s value. Salesforce AI Integration Enhances Platform Value
• Neutral Sentiment: Comparisons with ServiceNow show Salesforce remains larger by revenue, while ServiceNow has recently delivered faster year-over-year growth. Investors are weighing Salesforce’s scale against the need to accelerate growth through AI. Salesforce vs. ServiceNow Revenue Trends
• Negative Sentiment: Some investors remain skeptical that agentic AI products will generate meaningful incremental profit, leaving execution, customer adoption and monetization as key risks despite Salesforce’s strong earnings performance. Agentic AI Skepticism

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. DA Davidson set a $225.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, September 17th. Citizens Jmp restated a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, September 18th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $315.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have issued a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $278.12.

Salesforce Trading Up 4.5%

The firm has a fifty day moving average of $229.31 and a two-hundred day moving average of $194.02. The company has a market cap of $203.00 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.08 and a beta of 1.26. 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 released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The company’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.91 earnings per share. 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 predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 17th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 17th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 16.04%.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 4,176 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 18th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $239.33 per share, for a total transaction of $999,442.08. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,486,958.84. This trade represents a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 3.50% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth $11,396,844,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after acquiring an additional 7,160,302 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 28.0% during the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 11,724,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,188,666,000 after acquiring an additional 2,561,923 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $927,332,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at approximately $844,928,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc (NYSE: CRM) develops cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software and enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, analytics, data integration and collaboration through subscription-based services.

The company’s product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Platform, Data Cloud and Tableau. Salesforce also offers MuleSoft integration technology, Slack collaboration software and artificial intelligence capabilities through its Einstein platform.