Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Up 1.2% – What’s Next?

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded up 1.2% on Monday . The stock traded as high as $193.70 and last traded at $186.1970. Approximately 11,520,115 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 17% from the average session volume of 13,840,349 shares. The stock had previously closed at $184.02.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Macquarie Infrastructure cut their price target on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut shares of Salesforce from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Salesforce in a report on Thursday, June 18th. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. Finally, Raymond James Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $249.51.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.0%

The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $170.69 and a 200-day moving average price of $183.76. The company has a market capitalization of $157.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.32, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.58 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Bank Hapoalim BM bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth $2,309,000. BIP Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth $684,000. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at $46,000. Next Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $1,780,000. Finally, Summit Global Investments purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $2,072,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

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.