Ballast Inc. Boosts Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Ballast Inc. increased its Salesforce stake by 54% in the second quarter, bringing its holdings to 9,737 shares valued at approximately $1.53 million. Institutional investors collectively own 80.43% of Salesforce.
• Salesforce reported quarterly earnings of $3.88 per share, beating estimates by $0.75, while revenue rose 13.3% year over year to $11.13 billion. The company also pays a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, yielding about 0.9% annually.
• Analyst sentiment remains broadly positive, with a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and a $250.28 target price, although concerns persist about slower revenue acceleration, customers replacing CRM tools with in-house AI, and competitive risks surrounding Salesforce’s AI transition.

Ballast Inc. raised its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 54.0% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 9,737 shares of the CRM provider's stock after acquiring an additional 3,415 shares during the period. Ballast Inc.'s holdings in Salesforce were worth $1,525,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in CRM. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 3,102 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings 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 worth $611,000 after buying an additional 205 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 9.0% during the 4th quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $747,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $807,000 after acquiring an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 5.2% during the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $2,781,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $193.20 on Thursday. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $146.32 and a 12-month high of $269.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $170.96 and its 200-day simple moving average is $182.38. The company has a market capitalization of $158.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.36, a PEG ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm's quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $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. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

Salesforce News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: UBS raised its Salesforce price target from $185 to $210, while maintaining a neutral rating, and Wells Fargo lifted its target from $200 to $205 with an equal-weight rating. The revisions suggest analysts see upside from current levels despite a cautious stance. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Short interest fell 36.7% in the second half of July to 29.4 million shares, reducing a potential source of selling pressure and indicating fewer investors are betting against CRM.
• Positive Sentiment: New Salesforce-related business activity, including Navatar’s governed AI framework using Agentforce and Claude and Strativera’s Salesforce AppExchange listing, highlights continued adoption of Salesforce’s ecosystem and AI tools. Navatar AI Framework
• Neutral Sentiment: The latest market-session report noted that CRM declined while the broader market advanced, reflecting relative underperformance rather than a new company-specific financial release. Zacks Salesforce Stock Report
• Negative Sentiment: UBS said Salesforce may temper expectations for accelerating revenue growth in the second half, raising concern that the company’s AI opportunity may not translate into faster near-term sales growth. UBS Revenue Growth Outlook
• Negative Sentiment: Curative reportedly dropped an approximately $600,000 annual Salesforce contract after building AI-based internal software, reinforcing fears that customers could replace portions of Salesforce functionality with cheaper in-house tools. Curative Salesforce Contract
• Negative Sentiment: Reports also raised concerns about leadership changes and Salesforce’s positioning in sensitive government AI workloads, as well as the loss of a major healthcare customer to an in-house AI CRM. These developments add competitive and execution risk to the AI transition. Salesforce Government AI Positioning

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CRM has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Barclays raised Salesforce from an "overweight" rating to an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Wolfe Research lowered shares of Salesforce from an "outperform" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an "equal weight" rating and issued a $185.00 price target (down from $287.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $185.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating, sixteen have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $250.28.

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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