Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Mizuho Analyst Says

Key Points

• Mizuho raised Salesforce’s price target to $280 from $265 and maintained an “outperform” rating, implying roughly 11.7% upside from the prior close.
• Analyst sentiment remains broadly positive, with a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and an average price target of $267.50. Jefferies has set a higher $300 target, while most analysts rate the stock Buy or Strong Buy.
• Salesforce recently beat quarterly earnings expectations, reporting $5.90 in EPS versus the $3.27 consensus and $11.35 billion in revenue. However, investors remain focused on whether AI adoption can drive sustained growth amid monetization, cash-flow and service-reliability concerns.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) had its price objective lifted by investment analysts at Mizuho from $265.00 to $280.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an "outperform" rating on the CRM provider's stock. Mizuho's target price would indicate a potential upside of 11.73% from the company's previous close.

Several other brokerages have also recently weighed in on CRM. B. Riley Financial increased their target price on Salesforce from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Susquehanna assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued a "neutral" rating for the company. Raymond James Financial reissued a "strong-buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Erste Group Bank raised shares of Salesforce from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $267.50.

Salesforce Price Performance

NYSE CRM traded down $5.04 on Wednesday, reaching $250.60. 3,524,762 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 13,965,092. The stock has a market cap of $206.25 billion, a PE ratio of 22.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 1.20. Salesforce has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $204.13 and a 200 day simple moving average of $188.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The company had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The firm's revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.91 EPS. 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, research analysts predict that Salesforce will post 12.83 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 3.50% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth $25,000. Gunpowder Capital Management LLC dba Oliver Wealth Management acquired a new position in Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. Godfrey Financial Associates Inc. acquired a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $36,000. Abound Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $38,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 410.3% during the first quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: AI product momentum: Salesforce and NVIDIA introduced Koa, a CRM-specific reasoning model built on NVIDIA Nemotron to support complex, multi-step tasks in Agentforce. The launch strengthens Salesforce’s effort to differentiate its AI tools using proprietary CRM data and enterprise workflows. Announcing Koa: Salesforce’s First CRM Reasoning Model
• Positive Sentiment: Signs of adoption are improving: Slackbot users increased more than 150% sequentially, while stronger Slack bookings and rapid growth in Agentforce activity suggest Salesforce may be expanding customer spending through AI. Analysts argue the company’s large enterprise customer base could provide a distribution advantage. Slackbot Users Jump 150%
• Positive Sentiment: Broader ecosystem support: Salesforce announced expanded collaborations with AWS, NVIDIA, Siemens and other partners, while Outreach joined AgentExchange. These integrations could accelerate enterprise deployment of Agentforce and increase Salesforce’s role in customers’ AI workflows.
• Neutral Sentiment: Investor expectations are elevated: Salesforce shares have recently approached their 52-week high, and some analysts see further upside if AI products translate into sustained organic growth. Options activity and analyst commentary remain generally constructive, although opinions are mixed.
• Negative Sentiment: Service disruption at Dreamforce: Salesforce warned that users could experience severe delays, intermittent errors or inability to access certain services. The outage creates an immediate reliability concern and could undermine confidence during the company’s flagship investor event. Salesforce Service Outages Strike on Day 2 of Dreamforce Conference
• Negative Sentiment: Monetization and cash-flow risks: Analysts note that most sales and service users have not yet moved to premium editions required for some AI features. Concerns also persist that Salesforce’s fiscal 2027 free-cash-flow growth outlook has slowed, making the stock’s premium valuation more dependent on successful AI adoption.

Salesforce Company Profile

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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