Salesforce Inc. $CRM Stake Boosted by Geode Capital Management LLC

Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 3.8% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 791,345 shares during the quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $5,751,073,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Employees Retirement System of Texas grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 32.4% during the fourth quarter. Employees Retirement System of Texas now owns 51,715 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,700,000 after purchasing an additional 12,642 shares during the last quarter. Roundview Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Roundview Capital LLC now owns 11,183 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,962,000 after purchasing an additional 67 shares during the last quarter. GS Investments Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 0.9% during the fourth quarter. GS Investments Inc. now owns 11,698 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $3,099,000 after purchasing an additional 109 shares during the last quarter. Collaborative Wealth Managment Inc. bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $220,000. Finally, Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 4,036 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,069,000 after purchasing an additional 511 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce topped Wall Street expectations for Q1, posting EPS of $3.88 and revenue of $11.13 billion, supported by continued adoption of its AI-powered tools and strong double-digit revenue growth. Reuters article
• Positive Sentiment: The company said Agentforce annualized revenue passed the $1 billion mark, reinforcing the case that its AI products are becoming a meaningful growth driver. CNBC article
• Positive Sentiment: Management also raised full-year profit guidance and said it will keep investing in strong products and share buybacks, which may help support shareholder returns. CNBC article
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Marc Benioff pushed back on fears that AI rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic will disrupt Salesforce, arguing the company’s software remains central to enterprise customers. CNBC article
• Negative Sentiment: Investors were disappointed that revenue guidance for the year came in only slightly below expectations, while backlog metrics also appeared softer than hoped, tempering enthusiasm around the beat. CNBC article
• Negative Sentiment: Salesforce remains weighed down by investor concern that AI could reshape the enterprise software market and pressure long-term growth, keeping the stock volatile despite the quarter’s solid results. Benzinga article

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $177.86 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $181.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of $211.16. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $145.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.14. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $163.52 and a 12-month high of $278.81.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on CRM shares. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $300.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Barclays decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $265.00 to $252.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Northland Securities decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $267.00 to $229.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $272.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 2,570 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Laura Alber purchased 2,571 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at $1,854,347.40. This represents a 36.94% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Company insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce 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.