David Blair Kirk Purchases 4,176 Shares of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock

Key Points

• Salesforce director David Blair Kirk purchased 4,176 shares at an average price of $239.33, investing nearly $1 million and increasing his direct ownership by 28.66% to 18,748 shares.
• Salesforce reported strong quarterly results, with earnings per share of $5.90 versus the $3.27 consensus estimate and revenue of $11.35 billion, up 10.8% year over year.
• The stock has a “Moderate Buy” consensus rating and a $275.14 average analyst price target, while Salesforce also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, yielding 0.7% annually.

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) Director David Blair Kirk purchased 4,176 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Friday, September 18th. The stock was bought at an average price of $239.33 per share, for a total transaction of $999,442.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,486,958.84. The trade was a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:CRM traded down $1.41 on Monday, hitting $236.51. 10,041,556 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 14,037,303. The company's 50 day moving average price is $208.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $189.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $194.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.56, a PEG ratio of 1.09 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.33 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.91 earnings per share. The firm's revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. Research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 17th. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.04%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CRM has been the subject of several research reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Salesforce from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Friday. Piper Sandler cut shares of Salesforce from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Argus raised their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, August 31st. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Salesforce from $265.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 16th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Salesforce from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $275.14.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. ABS Direct Equity Fund LLC bought a new position in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $25,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC bought a new position in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd acquired a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC grew its stake in Salesforce by 410.3% during the first quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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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