Independent Financial Group LLC Invests $2.59 Million in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Independent Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm purchased 13,895 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,594,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,800,353,000 after purchasing an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after buying an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its stake in Salesforce by 13.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after buying an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Salesforce by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after acquiring an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the subject of a number of research reports. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, June 6th. Raymond James Financial lowered shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Macquarie Infrastructure lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Salesforce stock opened at $171.20 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $170.64 and a 200-day moving average of $191.20. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $146.32 and a 1 year high of $274.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The company has a market capitalization of $140.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82, a P/E/G ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. The firm’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. On average, equities research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

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.