Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) Receives Consensus Recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from Analysts

Key Points

• Analysts maintain a “Moderate Buy” consensus on Salesforce, with 28 buy, three strong-buy, 14 hold and three sell ratings. The average 12-month price target is $267.13.
• Salesforce reported quarterly EPS of $5.90, surpassing the $3.27 consensus estimate, while revenue reached $11.35 billion and increased 10.8% year over year.
• Shares recently traded at $259.29, up 4.7%, while institutional investors own 80.43% of the company; Salesforce also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share.

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) has been assigned a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" from the forty-eight analysts that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have issued a hold rating, twenty-eight have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $267.1250.

Several research firms have commented on CRM. BTIG Research reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Phillip Securities downgraded shares of Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating and reduced their target price for the company from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research note on Monday, June 29th. Erste Group Bank upgraded shares of Salesforce from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total transaction 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 3.50% of the company's stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its position in Salesforce by 13,260.5% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 188,085,056 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $29,465,405,000 after acquiring an additional 186,677,290 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp lifted its position in Salesforce by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares during the period. Capital International Investors grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 791,345 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 4.7%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $259.29 on Tuesday. Salesforce has a 1-year low of $146.32 and a 1-year high of $269.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The business's 50 day moving average is $202.41 and its two-hundred day moving average is $187.76. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.64, a PEG ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.20.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio is currently 16.04%.

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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