Northland Securities Cuts Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Price Target to $229.00

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) had its price objective reduced by Northland Securities from $267.00 to $229.00 in a report released on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a market perform rating on the CRM provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $197.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, March 2nd. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $260.00 to $200.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 17th. Truist Financial set a $280.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Guggenheim reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $282.06.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $198.68 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $211.70 and its 200 day moving average price is $235.53. Salesforce has a 12-month low of $174.57 and a 12-month high of $296.05. The firm has a market cap of $183.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.44, a PEG ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. The company had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.Salesforce’s revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.78 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 9th. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 21.25%.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In related news, Director David Blair Kirk bought 1,936 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $258.64 per share, for a total transaction of $500,727.04. Following the acquisition, the director owned 10,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. This represents a 22.15% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at $1,742,271.30. This trade represents a 34.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 3.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CRM. Farmers National Bank increased its position in Salesforce by 103.6% during the fourth quarter. Farmers National Bank now owns 2,400 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $636,000 after buying an additional 1,221 shares during the period. Meadowbrook Advisors Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $945,000. AG Campbell Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $723,000. Green Ridge Wealth Planning LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $869,000. Finally, PeakShares LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $1,467,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong recent fundamentals and AI momentum bolster investor confidence—analysts and coverage pieces note Salesforce’s robust fiscal 2026 results and rising AI-driven demand that supported recent gains. CRM Stock Up More Than 5% in a Month: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold?
• Positive Sentiment: Product/GTMS initiatives: Salesforce is pushing contact-center modernization with Agentforce, which could drive upsells in Service Cloud and contact-center spend. Salesforce Aims to End the ‘Frankenstein’ Contact Center With Agentforce
• Positive Sentiment: Partner and integration momentum—third-party vendors (e.g., LivePerson, Cloudsquare integrations) are emphasizing Salesforce as the CRM backbone, which supports platform stickiness and ecosystem revenue. LivePerson Announces Event-driven Orchestration Partnership with Coral Active
• Positive Sentiment: Management outreach to investors: recent presentations at Morgan Stanley highlighted record fiscal 2026 performance and strategic priorities for 2027, helping sentiment. Salesforce (CRM) Presents at Morgan Stanley’s Conference, Here’s What You Need to Know
• Neutral Sentiment: Capital markets execution: Salesforce priced an underwritten offering of senior notes (aggregate $25B) with proceeds earmarked for buybacks—a definitive move but execution/terms will determine impact. Salesforce Prices Public Offering of Senior Notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces and competitor comparisons (Oracle, ServiceNow) highlight that Salesforce remains a cloud/AI market leader, but growth comparisons show mixed near-term organic trends. What If You Had Invested $1,000 in Oracle or Salesforce 10 Years Ago?
• Negative Sentiment: Tepid demand and higher yields on the $25B bond package have surfaced—reports show investor hesitation and higher required yields, signalling market concern about the leverage and pricing of debt-funded buybacks. Salesforce Sees Tepid Demand for Bond Sale to Fund Share Buyback
• Negative Sentiment: Credit and analyst pressure: rating agencies reacted to the buyback/debt move and some brokers issued downgrades or pessimistic forecasts—this increases financing costs and adds near-term downside risk. Salesforce Weighs Debt Funded Buybacks And Partner Cloud Against Valuation
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst downgrade and bearish notes have pressured sentiment, with some reports calling for lower near-term price targets. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Down 2% on Analyst Downgrade

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.