Magnetar Financial LLC Sells 22,450 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Magnetar Financial LLC reduced its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 70.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 9,630 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 22,450 shares during the quarter. Magnetar Financial LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $2,282,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Marquette Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce in the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth about $27,000. Country Trust Bank raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 658.8% during the second quarter. Country Trust Bank now owns 129 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 112 shares during the last quarter. Capital A Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 40.9% in the second quarter. Capital A Wealth Management LLC now owns 155 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. Finally, Kilter Group LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $42,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at $1,742,271.30. This represents a 34.78% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was bought at an average price 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. This represents a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Up 2.3%

Shares of NYSE:CRM opened at $198.68 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The stock has a market cap of $183.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.44, a P/E/G ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a 50 day moving average of $211.70 and a 200-day moving average of $235.53. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $174.57 and a one year high of $296.05.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. The business had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.78 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be paid a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This is a positive change from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 21.25%.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong recent fundamentals and AI momentum bolster investor confidence—analysts and coverage pieces note Salesforce’s robust fiscal 2026 results and rising AI-driven demand that supported recent gains. CRM Stock Up More Than 5% in a Month: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold?
• Positive Sentiment: Product/GTMS initiatives: Salesforce is pushing contact-center modernization with Agentforce, which could drive upsells in Service Cloud and contact-center spend. Salesforce Aims to End the ‘Frankenstein’ Contact Center With Agentforce
• Positive Sentiment: Partner and integration momentum—third-party vendors (e.g., LivePerson, Cloudsquare integrations) are emphasizing Salesforce as the CRM backbone, which supports platform stickiness and ecosystem revenue. LivePerson Announces Event-driven Orchestration Partnership with Coral Active
• Positive Sentiment: Management outreach to investors: recent presentations at Morgan Stanley highlighted record fiscal 2026 performance and strategic priorities for 2027, helping sentiment. Salesforce (CRM) Presents at Morgan Stanley’s Conference, Here’s What You Need to Know
• Neutral Sentiment: Capital markets execution: Salesforce priced an underwritten offering of senior notes (aggregate $25B) with proceeds earmarked for buybacks—a definitive move but execution/terms will determine impact. Salesforce Prices Public Offering of Senior Notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces and competitor comparisons (Oracle, ServiceNow) highlight that Salesforce remains a cloud/AI market leader, but growth comparisons show mixed near-term organic trends. What If You Had Invested $1,000 in Oracle or Salesforce 10 Years Ago?
• Negative Sentiment: Tepid demand and higher yields on the $25B bond package have surfaced—reports show investor hesitation and higher required yields, signalling market concern about the leverage and pricing of debt-funded buybacks. Salesforce Sees Tepid Demand for Bond Sale to Fund Share Buyback
• Negative Sentiment: Credit and analyst pressure: rating agencies reacted to the buyback/debt move and some brokers issued downgrades or pessimistic forecasts—this increases financing costs and adds near-term downside risk. Salesforce Weighs Debt Funded Buybacks And Partner Cloud Against Valuation
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst downgrade and bearish notes have pressured sentiment, with some reports calling for lower near-term price targets. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Down 2% on Analyst Downgrade

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Wolfe Research reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $315.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $197.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, March 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $282.06.

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.