Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Down 2.2% – Here’s Why

Shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) were down 2.2% on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $149.80 and last traded at $151.6690. 55,503,160 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 300% from the average session volume of 13,881,371 shares. The stock had previously closed at $155.02.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded Salesforce to buy and set a $200 price target, implying meaningful upside from current levels. Read More
• Positive Sentiment: Truist gave Salesforce a vote of confidence after the company announced its $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, which should strengthen its AI/customer agent offerings and deepen its automation push. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Multiple articles highlight Salesforce as a long-term growth and generative AI play, with coverage pointing to Agentforce and broader AI monetization as potential drivers of future revenue growth. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: UBS reaffirmed its neutral rating, suggesting the market is still divided on Salesforce’s near-term setup despite the AI narrative. Read More
• Neutral Sentiment: A comparison piece versus Oracle highlights that Salesforce’s recent results and outlook are being judged against peers, with investors still parsing which cloud software name has the stronger earnings momentum. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Some recent commentary has focused on valuation cuts and questions about AI growth monetization, which may be weighing on sentiment and helping explain why the shares remain weak. Article Title

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on CRM shares. HC Wainwright cut Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research note on Thursday. Scotiabank cut shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. Finally, Mizuho lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $257.61.

Salesforce Trading Down 2.2%

The firm has a market cap of $124.22 billion, a PE ratio of 17.55, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $178.54 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $205.28. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business’s revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

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.