Stephens Inc. AR Sells 5,261 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Stephens Inc. AR reduced its Salesforce stake by 9.3% in the first quarter, selling 5,261 shares and ending with 51,547 shares valued at about $9.7 million.
• Salesforce reported solid quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 topping estimates and revenue of $11.13 billion, up 13.3% year over year.
• The company continues to return capital to shareholders through a newly authorized $25 billion share buyback program and a quarterly dividend that yields about 1.0% annually.

Stephens Inc. AR lessened its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 9.3% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 51,547 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 5,261 shares during the quarter. Stephens Inc. AR's holdings in Salesforce were worth $9,714,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 13.7% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $8,582,000 after purchasing an additional 3,102 shares during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in Salesforce by 12.6% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $611,000 after acquiring an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC boosted its stake in 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 grew its holdings in Salesforce by 3.7% during the second 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 during the period. Finally, United Bank increased its stake in Salesforce by 5.2% in the second quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $2,781,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM traded up $4.94 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $170.59. The company had a trading volume of 3,199,266 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,906,021. The firm has a market cap of $139.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.74, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18. The business has a fifty day moving average of $173.23 and a 200-day moving average of $197.31. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $276.80. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. Salesforce's quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on CRM shares. Scotiabank cut shares of Salesforce from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised Salesforce from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Daiwa Securities Group decreased their target price on Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded Salesforce from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Saturday, June 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average 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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