Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Receives Equal Weight Rating from Stephens

Key Points

• Stephens reaffirmed its “equal weight” rating on Salesforce and set a $289 price target, implying 18.76% upside from the prior close. Analysts overall maintain a “Moderate Buy” consensus with an average target of $275.14.
• Salesforce reported quarterly EPS of $5.90, substantially above the $3.27 consensus estimate, while revenue reached $11.35 billion and grew 10.8% year over year.
• Institutional investors own 80.43% of Salesforce, while a company director recently sold 4,500 shares. The stock opened at $243.35 and remains below its 52-week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "equal weight" rating reaffirmed by investment analysts at Stephens in a report released on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $289.00 target price on the CRM provider's stock. Stephens' price target indicates a potential upside of 18.76% from the company's previous close.

Several other research firms also recently commented on CRM. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Oppenheimer reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday. TD Cowen restated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $222.00 to $266.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $275.14.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $243.35 on Friday. 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 company's fifty day simple moving average is $207.43 and its 200 day simple moving average is $188.91. Salesforce has a 1-year low of $146.32 and a 1-year high of $269.11. The company has a market cap of $200.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.18, a PEG ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.20.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The company had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.91 EPS. The company's quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. 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, research analysts forecast that Salesforce will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the transaction, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. This represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 3.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. Capital International Investors increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after buying an additional 2,669,891 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after buying an additional 791,345 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 19,672,684 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $5,211,515,000 after acquiring an additional 2,347,478 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Trending Headlines about Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Long-term revenue outlook exceeded expectations. At Dreamforce, Salesforce projected fiscal 2030 revenue of more than $63 billion, supported by accelerating demand for artificial intelligence and data products. The forecast helped ease fears that AI could disrupt Salesforce’s core software business. Salesforce issues revenue target of over $63 billion for fiscal 2030
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts raised price targets across the board. Stifel and Canaccord lifted their targets to $300, while BMO raised its target to $285 and Wells Fargo increased its target to $250. The upgrades reflect expectations that Agentforce, data products, and other enterprise AI offerings can drive a re-rating of CRM. Six Analysts Turn Bullish on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: AI ecosystem momentum is expanding. Salesforce announced integrations involving Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI, Nvidia, Slack, and Snap. Agentforce annual recurring revenue reportedly reached $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year, while net new annual order value growth reached a four-year high.
• Neutral Sentiment: Options activity signals increased speculative interest. Traders bought approximately 253,000 CRM call options, about 171% above typical daily call volume. The activity may indicate bullish positioning, but it does not guarantee sustained buying in the stock.
• Negative Sentiment: Execution and monetization concerns remain. Partner checks were positive on demand but mixed on pricing, and analysts continue to question how quickly Agentforce and Claude integrations will translate into Salesforce revenue. Reports also noted that Agentforce’s return on investment remains an open issue.
• Negative Sentiment: A service outage created an unwelcome headline during Dreamforce. The disruption affected access to parts of Salesforce’s cloud software suite, raising concerns about reliability and adding pressure while the company promotes AI-powered enterprise applications. Salesforce stock falls as service outage hits during crucial conference

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.

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