B. Riley Financial Issues Positive Forecast for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price

Key Points

• B. Riley Financial raised its price target on Salesforce from $205 to $240 and kept a buy rating, implying about 34.6% upside from the stock’s current level.
• Salesforce’s latest quarter topped expectations, with EPS of $3.88 and revenue of $11.13 billion, while revenue rose 13.3% year over year and the company lifted its FY2027 guidance.
• Despite the upbeat results, analysts remain mixed: the consensus rating is still Moderate Buy, but some firms have trimmed targets or issued cautious ratings, reflecting concerns about near-term growth and AI disruption risk.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) had its target price raised by equities researchers at B. Riley Financial from $205.00 to $240.00 in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a "buy" rating on the CRM provider's stock. B. Riley Financial's target price suggests a potential upside of 34.60% from the company's current price.

CRM has been the subject of several other research reports. Bank of America started coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, May 18th. They set an "underperform" rating and a $160.00 price objective on the stock. Oppenheimer decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Piper Sandler restated an "overweight" rating and set a $215.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday. KeyCorp restated an "overweight" rating and issued a $290.00 price target (down from $300.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $266.76.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM stock traded up $0.80 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $178.31. The stock had a trading volume of 7,799,003 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,873,628. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $181.23 and its 200 day simple moving average is $211.16. Salesforce has a 52-week low of $163.52 and a 52-week high of $276.80. The company has a market cap of $145.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.14.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The business's revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Salesforce will post 9.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 2,570 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was bought at an average price of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This represents a 23.11% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the purchase, the director owned 9,530 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% 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 corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Brighton Jones LLC grew its position in Salesforce by 13.7% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $8,582,000 after acquiring an additional 3,102 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 12.6% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $611,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC boosted its position in Salesforce by 9.0% in the 4th quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $747,000 after buying an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in Salesforce by 3.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $807,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Finally, United Bank grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 5.2% during the second quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $2,781,000 after buying an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. 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: Piper Sandler reaffirmed its Overweight rating on Salesforce and set a $215 price target, implying meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced an expanded collaboration with CVS Health to use Agentforce Health AI agents to improve call center service for millions of members and providers, highlighting new enterprise use cases for its AI platform. PR Newswire
• Positive Sentiment: In Q1, Salesforce reported $3.88 EPS and $11.13 billion in revenue, both above expectations, with revenue up 13% year over year and margins improving. Reuters
• Positive Sentiment: The company also lifted its FY2027 EPS guidance, signaling management still expects strong profitability even as investors question AI disruption risk. MarketBeat
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and media coverage remain focused on the key debate: whether Salesforce can maintain growth and monetize AI quickly enough to offset broader disruption concerns in enterprise software. CNBC
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the earnings beat, Salesforce’s near-term revenue outlook slightly missed Wall Street estimates, which is the main reason shares have been softer. Stocktwits

About Salesforce

Salesforce, founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a global provider of cloud-based software focused on customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise applications. The company popularized the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for CRM and has built a broad portfolio of products designed to help organizations manage sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics through a unified, cloud-first platform.

Core offerings include Sales Cloud for sales automation, Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing and engagement, and Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.

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