ARQ Wealth Advisors LLC Invests $1.09 Million in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• ARQ Wealth Advisors disclosed a new position in Salesforce, buying 5,861 shares valued at about $1.09 million in the first quarter.
• Salesforce continues to draw interest from institutional investors, with hedge funds and other large investors owning 80.43% of the stock overall.
• The company’s recent fundamentals and outlook remain mixed but generally constructive: it beat quarterly EPS and revenue estimates, authorized a $25 billion share buyback, and maintains a consensus analyst rating of Moderate Buy despite some recent downgrades.

ARQ Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 5,861 shares of the CRM provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,094,000.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares during the period. SFE Investment Counsel increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% during the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $4,608,000 after buying an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the first quarter worth about $1,004,000. Eminence Capital LP lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 5.6% in the third quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $196,837,000 after buying an additional 43,888 shares during the period. Finally, Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $997,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Salesforce News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.5%

Shares of NYSE:CRM traded up $0.84 on Friday, hitting $163.34. 8,316,028 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $171.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $194.51. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The company has a market cap of $133.77 billion, a PE ratio of 18.90, a PEG ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.18. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $146.32 and a 52 week high of $274.00.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. Salesforce's revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.58 EPS. 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, research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce's payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the subject of several research reports. Canaccord Genuity Group reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $225.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Phillip Securities downgraded Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $253.00 to $166.00 in a report on Monday, June 29th. Wolfe Research lowered Salesforce from an "outperform" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Barclays upgraded shares of Salesforce from an "overweight" rating to an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a "neutral" rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $254.42.

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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