Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) Stock Has Average Price Target of $278.98

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) have earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fifty-two analysts that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have given a hold rating, thirty-two have issued a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $278.98.

Several brokerages recently weighed in on CRM. Wolfe Research raised shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, October 21st. Bank of America raised shares of Salesforce from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $160.00 to $285.00 in a research report on Monday, October 12th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Monday, October 12th. Finally, Erste Group Bank raised shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 4,176 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the acquisition, the director owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at $4,486,958.84. This trade represents 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 owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in Salesforce by 130.2% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter worth about $1,914,086,000. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth about $927,332,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at about $844,928,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s planned acquisition of AI voice-agent company Cresta could strengthen Agentforce and Service Cloud, adding capabilities for customer-service automation. The deal also brings acquisition costs and execution risks. Article: Salesforce Bets on AI Voice Agents With Planned Cresta Acquisition
• Positive Sentiment: Zacks Research upgraded Salesforce from “hold” to “strong buy,” a favorable analyst signal that may help counter near-term concerns. Article: Zacks Research rating
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce is expanding its Coworker offering and promoting a 21-times growth claim, but the report notes that no baseline is provided, making the figure difficult to assess. Article: Salesforce Expands Coworker’s Reach, but Its 21× Growth Claim Has No Baseline
• Neutral Sentiment: The company is extending Agent Fabric to help businesses manage AI agents across platforms. Its large customer base and reported 1.2 billion daily requests suggest potential, but investors still need evidence that the AI activity will translate into meaningful revenue. Article: Salesforce Stock: The 1 Number Investors Still Need to See
• Negative Sentiment: A broader software sell-off is weighing on CRM, while S&P Global Ratings cut Salesforce’s credit rating to A from A+. S&P cited acquisition spending and a $25 billion debt-financed buyback, which lifted pro forma net debt relative to EBITDA above its previous downgrade threshold. The rating action raises concerns about leverage and aggressive capital allocation. Article: S&P cuts Salesforce to A on rising acquisition debt and buybacks

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $213.96 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $176.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.74, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.84, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $239.53 and its 200-day moving average price is $198.64. Salesforce has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11.

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. Equities research analysts forecast that Salesforce will post 12.82 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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

Salesforce Company Profile

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.

Founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff and other co-founders, Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco.