Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Up 1.8% on Analyst Upgrade

Key Points

• Salesforce shares rose 1.8% after Wolfe Research upgraded the stock from “hold” to “strong buy,” with trading volume surging 144% above the daily average.
• Salesforce reported fiscal Q2 revenue of $11.35 billion and adjusted EPS of $5.90, beating estimates, while raising fiscal 2027 revenue and earnings guidance. AI products and the Anthropic partnership are strengthening investor confidence in renewed growth.
• Analyst sentiment is broadly positive, with a consensus “moderate buy” rating and average price target of $261.15, but concerns remain because a significant portion of the earnings beat came from investment gains, including gains tied to Salesforce’s Anthropic stake.

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) shares rose 1.8% on Friday after Wolfe Research upgraded the stock from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating. The stock traded as high as $263.53 and last traded at $256.60. 34,281,880 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 144% from the average daily volume of 14,030,075 shares. The stock had previously closed at $252.05.

A number of other research analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $300.00 target price (up from $280.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Salesforce from a "sell (d+)" rating to a "hold (c-)" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 12th. Daiwa Securities Group lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Scotiabank downgraded Salesforce from a "sector outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on Salesforce from $204.00 to $233.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $261.15.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Beat-and-raise results improved the growth outlook. Salesforce reported fiscal Q2 revenue of $11.35 billion, up 10.8% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $5.90 versus the $3.27 consensus estimate. Management raised fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $46.1 billion-$46.4 billion and EPS guidance to $16.67-$16.71, while Q3 EPS guidance also exceeded expectations. Salesforce raises annual revenue forecasts on AI product momentum
• Positive Sentiment: Operating indicators suggest a potential organic reacceleration. Remaining performance obligations accelerated 14% in constant currency, free cash flow increased 81%, and Agentforce/Data 360 annual recurring revenue approached $3.9 billion. Investors viewed these figures as evidence that AI is supplementing, rather than rapidly displacing, Salesforce’s core software business. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Call Focuses on AI-Led Reacceleration
• Positive Sentiment: Anthropic partnership strengthened Salesforce’s AI narrative. The new “Claudeforce” initiative integrates Anthropic’s Claude with Salesforce data, workflows, governance and Agentforce, including Salesforce functionality inside Claude. The announcement helped ease “SaaSpocalypse” concerns and positioned CRM as a potential beneficiary of enterprise AI adoption. Salesforce and Anthropic Announce Claudeforce
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment improved but remains mixed. Wolfe Research upgraded CRM to “strong buy,” while Truist raised its target to $300 and Needham maintained a $400 target. However, several firms retained neutral or equal-weight ratings, with targets below the recently traded level, indicating valuation and execution concerns remain.
• Negative Sentiment: Quarterly profit benefited materially from investment gains. Strategic investment gains, including approximately $2.7 billion related to Salesforce’s Anthropic stake, contributed about $2.53 of the $5.90 adjusted EPS. This makes the headline earnings beat less reflective of recurring operating performance and could limit the stock’s upside if gains are not repeated. Salesforce Stock Just Soared. Thank Anthropic.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its stake in Salesforce by 13,260.5% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 188,085,056 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $29,465,405,000 after purchasing an additional 186,677,290 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its stake in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,914,086,000. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.8%

The firm's fifty day moving average price is $179.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $182.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market cap of $210.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.39, a PEG ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 23.35% and a net margin of 21.99%.The company's quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.91 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Company Profile

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.

Continue following MarketBeat

Add MarketBeat as your preferred source on Google to see our latest stories in your feed.

Add As Preferred Source