First Financial Bank Trust Division Decreases Stock Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

First Financial Bank Trust Division lowered its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 15.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 17,315 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 3,226 shares during the period. First Financial Bank Trust Division’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $2,713,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Eastern Bank raised its stake in Salesforce by 20.0% during the 2nd quarter. Eastern Bank now owns 5,889 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $923,000 after buying an additional 982 shares during the last quarter. Roxbury Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 17.6% in the second quarter. Roxbury Financial LLC now owns 3,949 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $619,000 after acquiring an additional 590 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 32.3% in the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,991,616 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $371,775,000 after acquiring an additional 486,403 shares during the period. Southern Financial Group LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 31.0% during the first quarter. Southern Financial Group LLC now owns 1,820 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $340,000 after acquiring an additional 431 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 18.1% in the first quarter. Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd now owns 40,959 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $7,646,000 after acquiring an additional 6,289 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have issued reports on CRM. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, June 16th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, June 12th. HC Wainwright cut shares of Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, HSBC lifted their target price on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Buy rating, sixteen have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $249.51.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $186.20 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $152.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.55, a P/E/G ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $170.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $184.10.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.58 EPS. The business’s 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, analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. 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 dividend payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

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.