Punch & Associates Investment Management Inc. Takes Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Punch & Associates Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 74,875 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $11,730,000.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC grew its position in Salesforce by 410.3% during the 1st quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce reported adjusted earnings of $5.90 per share, well above the $3.27 analyst consensus and up from $2.91 a year earlier. Revenue increased 10.8% year over year to $11.35 billion, narrowly exceeding estimates. Salesforce Q2 Earnings and Revenues Top Estimates
• Positive Sentiment: The company raised fiscal 2027 guidance to $46.1 billion-$46.4 billion in revenue and $16.67-$16.71 in EPS. Third-quarter guidance calls for $11.4 billion-$11.5 billion in revenue and $3.42-$3.44 in EPS, with the profit forecast above consensus. Salesforce Raises Annual Revenue Forecasts
• Positive Sentiment: Management cited momentum in AI-powered autonomous agents as a reason for increased confidence in future growth. Salesforce also recorded a roughly $2.6 billion gain on strategic investments, helped by the rising value of its Anthropic stake, boosting reported profitability. Salesforce Stock Jumps on AI Growth
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce and Anthropic expanded their partnership through “Claudeforce,” integrating Claude with Salesforce data, workflows and governance. The offering includes prebuilt sales skills and could strengthen adoption of Salesforce’s Agentforce platform. Salesforce and Anthropic Announce Claudeforce
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Marc Benioff rejected “SaaSpocalypse” concerns, arguing that AI is expanding rather than destroying Salesforce’s software opportunity. Investors will still look for sustained subscription growth and Agentforce monetization in coming quarters. Salesforce CEO Responds to SaaSpocalypse Concerns
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the earnings beat, quarterly revenue growth remained near 11%, so the stock’s longer-term performance depends on whether AI products produce a meaningful reacceleration rather than simply offsetting pressure on Salesforce’s core business.

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE:CRM opened at $206.01 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $168.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $177.13 and its 200 day simple moving average is $181.60. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $146.32 and a twelve month high of $269.11. 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 (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.91 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have commented on CRM shares. Roth Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday. Phillip Securities cut shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research report on Monday, June 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, August 13th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $250.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, CLSA began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, July 20th. They set a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price objective for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $248.72.

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.