SFE Investment Counsel Buys Shares of 13,353 Salesforce Inc. $CRM

SFE Investment Counsel bought a new position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 13,353 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,092,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 13.7% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $8,582,000 after acquiring an additional 3,102 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 12.6% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $611,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the period. Bison Wealth LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 9.0% during the 4th quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $747,000 after purchasing an additional 184 shares during the period. Sivia Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $807,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Finally, United Bank raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 5.2% in the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,781,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Trending Headlines about Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies more than 24% upside from recent levels. JPMorgan bullish Salesforce coverage
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its Salesforce price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating. UBS and Wells Fargo also reportedly forecast strong appreciation, reinforcing improving sell-side sentiment. Monness Crespi Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s Agentforce platform is gaining traction, giving the company a way to use its large CRM customer base to compete with Microsoft and Oracle in enterprise “agentic” AI. Salesforce agentic AI analysis
• Positive Sentiment: A Seeking Alpha analysis argues that Salesforce’s $27.1 billion share-repurchase program, equivalent to an estimated 23% net buyback yield, could support earnings-per-share growth. The stock also appears inexpensive at roughly 14 times forward earnings, although buybacks have increased debt. Salesforce buyback analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce has recently posted strong momentum, with reports noting three consecutive weeks of gains and substantial one-month appreciation. That run may be encouraging investors, but it also raises the possibility of profit-taking.
• Negative Sentiment: Parnassus Investments indicated that Salesforce has lost favor as AI opportunities shift toward competing or substitute technologies. Other commentary likewise warns that alternative software and AI-native tools threaten Salesforce’s traditional CRM franchise. Salesforce AI competition concerns

Salesforce Stock Down 2.7%

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $195.86 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $171.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $182.28. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The company has a market cap of $160.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.67, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 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 firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce’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. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. CLSA began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, July 20th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price objective for the company. Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Daiwa Securities Group dropped their target price on Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $249.05.

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.