Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Up 2.7% – What’s Next?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) shot up 2.7% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $191.29 and last traded at $191.02. 8,792,195 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 36% from the average session volume of 13,815,431 shares. The stock had previously closed at $185.95.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CRM has been the subject of several research analyst reports. HC Wainwright lowered shares of Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, June 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. KeyCorp downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Finally, TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Stock Performance

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 company has a market capitalization of $156.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.11, a P/E/G ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.16. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $170.46 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $184.10.

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, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.58 earnings per share. The business’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, sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CRM. BIP Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth $684,000. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $46,000. Next Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $1,780,000. Summit Global Investments purchased a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $2,072,000. Finally, Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $13,946,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.