Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH Buys 77,000 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 842,842 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 77,000 shares during the quarter. Salesforce accounts for approximately 1.1% of Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH’s holdings, making the stock its 20th biggest position. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $199,754,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. KDT Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 4.1% in the first quarter. KDT Advisors LLC now owns 967 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $260,000 after buying an additional 38 shares during the period. Scott & Selber Inc. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Scott & Selber Inc. now owns 5,850 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,595,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the period. Hanson & Doremus Investment Management lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 6.9% in the 2nd quarter. Hanson & Doremus Investment Management now owns 607 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $166,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the period. Beverly Hills Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 2.3% during the 2nd quarter. Beverly Hills Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,716 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $468,000 after purchasing an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lifeworks Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 2.9% during the second quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC now owns 1,420 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $387,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Large enterprise validation — Novartis picked Salesforce’s Agentforce Life Sciences for customer engagement, a meaningful commercial win that supports revenue/contract momentum in the healthcare vertical. Novartis Selects Salesforce’s (CRM) Agentforce Life Sciences for Customer Engagement
• Positive Sentiment: Institutional demand — the Artisan Value Fund’s recent purchase of CRM signals active asset-allocation interest from value-oriented managers, potentially supporting near-term buying pressure. Here’s what drove the Artisan Value Fund to pick Salesforce (CRM)
• Positive Sentiment: Bullish investor commentary — multiple bullish pieces argue CRM is attractively valued and positioned to benefit from agentic AI (Agentforce/Einstein), with some investors publicly increasing exposure. That narrative supports expectations for accelerating growth and margin expansion. Salesforce Strong Performance, Why I Am Buying More
• Positive Sentiment: Sentiment rebound story — MarketBeat highlights CRM among the most-downgraded-then-rebounding names, noting a confirmed price floor and analyst forecasts pointing to meaningful upside as AI momentum converts to demand. 2025’s Most Downgraded Stocks: Buy, Sell, or Hold in 2026
• Positive Sentiment: Buy-side echo — coverage from outlets arguing CRM is undervalued and an AI beneficiary (InsiderMonkey, The Motley Fool) adds to the buy-case narrative and could attract bargain hunters. Is Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) The Most Undervalued Tech Giant to Buy?
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst/blog mentions — broad coverage (Zacks Analyst Blog picked up in The Globe & Mail) keeps CRM top-of-mind for investors but is mostly descriptive rather than catalytic. The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Micron, Applied Materials, Salesforce and Cisco Systems
• Neutral Sentiment: Mixed forecasts — forecasters and long-horizon price-target pieces note volatile 2025 performance, large recent swings and differing upside estimates; useful for positioning but not an immediate catalyst. Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) Price Prediction and Forecast 2026-2030
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive caution — a Zacks comparison flags ServiceNow’s faster growth and large-deal momentum as advantages over CRM, underscoring execution risk and the need for Salesforce to convert AI momentum into durable market-share gains. Salesforce vs. ServiceNow: Which Cloud Software Stock Has the Edge?

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on CRM. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Salesforce from $405.00 to $398.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. Citigroup downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, December 5th. Evercore ISI lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $360.00 to $340.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $250.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Northland Securities lifted their price objective on Salesforce from $264.00 to $267.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating, thirteen have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $326.68.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, CEO Marc Benioff sold 122 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.00, for a total value of $31,598.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,085,096,889. This trade represents a 0.00% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 1,936 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $258.64 per share, with a total value of $500,727.04. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 10,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. The trade was a 22.15% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 164,034 shares of company stock worth $38,889,037 in the last quarter. Insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.1%

NYSE CRM opened at $266.29 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $249.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $251.50. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $221.96 and a one year high of $367.09. The firm has a market cap of $249.51 billion, a PE ratio of 35.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.86 by $0.39. The company had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.27 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 17.91%.The business’s revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.41 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th will be given a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.6%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 22.16%.

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.