Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Up 1.8% After Analyst Upgrade

Key Points

• Salesforce shares rose 1.8% after Bank of America upgraded the stock from Underperform to Buy and raised its price target from $160 to $285. Analysts overall maintain a “Moderate Buy” consensus with an average target of $278.12.
• Salesforce’s AI strategy is strengthening the investment case: Agentforce annual recurring revenue reportedly exceeds $1.5 billion, the company agreed to acquire AI analytics platform Loops for about $30 million, and it expanded its integration partnership with DocuSign.
• The company reported a significant quarterly earnings beat, with EPS of $5.90 versus a $3.27 estimate and revenue up 10.8% year over year to $11.35 billion. However, investors remain cautious about AI monetization, potential cannibalization of seat-based software, and integration risks.

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report)'s share price shot up 1.8% during trading on Tuesday after Bank of America upgraded the stock from an underperform rating to a buy rating. Bank of America now has a $285.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $160.00. Salesforce traded as high as $245.06 and last traded at $238.1370. 8,801,394 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 35% from the average daily volume of 13,637,842 shares. The stock had previously closed at $233.92.

A number of other equities analysts have also weighed in on CRM. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Friday, September 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. HC Wainwright downgraded shares of Salesforce to a "negative" rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-one have given a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $278.12.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. This represents a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 4,176 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 18th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $239.33 per share, for a total transaction of $999,442.08. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 18,748 shares of the company's stock, valued at $4,486,958.84. This trade represents a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 3.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America upgraded Salesforce from Underperform to Buy and raised its price target to $285 from $160. The rare double upgrade reflects BofA’s view that AI can deepen customer reliance on Salesforce’s enterprise software platform and support stronger demand. Salesforce Just Got a Rare Double Upgrade—What Changed?
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce agreed to acquire Loops, an AI-powered analytics platform, for approximately $30 million. Loops is expected to strengthen Tableau and Slack by proactively identifying business trends, explaining anomalies and recommending actions. The deal supports Salesforce’s strategy of embedding agentic AI into customer workflows and is expected to close in November. Salesforce to buy AI-powered analytics platform Loops
• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption and shareholder returns are supporting the investment case. Recent coverage cited Agentforce annual recurring revenue above $1.5 billion, remaining performance obligations of roughly $33.5 billion and Salesforce’s $25 billion share-repurchase program. These factors could improve revenue visibility and earnings per share while the company shifts toward usage-based AI pricing. Bear to bull: A double upgrade of Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce expanded its partnership with DocuSign. DocuSign’s Intelligent Agreement Management platform will be integrated natively across Salesforce, Agentforce and Slack, potentially increasing platform functionality and customer stickiness. DocuSign and Salesforce launch intelligent agreement management
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest quarterly results showed a substantial earnings beat and approximately 10.8% year-over-year revenue growth, but investors continue to debate whether AI adoption will translate into sustained organic revenue acceleration rather than simply offset pressure on traditional software seats. Q2 Earnings Highs and Lows: Salesforce vs. the Rest of the Sales Software Stocks
• Negative Sentiment: Risks include Loops integration and monetization uncertainty, elevated short interest, and concerns that AI could cannibalize seat-based software demand. Investors will look for evidence that Agentforce and the Loops technology generate durable subscription growth.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $11,396,844,000. Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at $1,914,086,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after acquiring an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at $927,332,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at $844,928,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The firm has a market capitalization of $195.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.26. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $227.50 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $193.27.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 17th were 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 was Thursday, September 17th. Salesforce's payout ratio is currently 16.04%.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc NYSE: CRM develops cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software and enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, analytics, data integration and collaboration through subscription-based services.

The company's product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Platform, Data Cloud and Tableau. Salesforce also offers MuleSoft integration technology, Slack collaboration software and artificial intelligence capabilities through its Einstein platform.

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