Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 1.8% – Here’s What Happened

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s share price shot up 1.8% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $241.12 and last traded at $237.5670. Approximately 11,464,650 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 18% from the average daily volume of 14,023,848 shares. The stock had previously closed at $233.28.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Enterprise software stocks rallied even as broader large-cap technology stocks weakened. Salesforce rose alongside Atlassian and Monday.com, while the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF gained about 1%, indicating renewed sector-wide investor interest. Enterprise Software Stocks Rally as Tech Tape Slides
• Positive Sentiment: Several bullish commentaries argue that Salesforce’s Agentforce and broader agentic-AI business are scaling rapidly and that the stock remains undervalued relative to its long-term opportunity. One Wall Street firm reportedly sees potential for roughly 70% upside, while the average analyst target cited by MarketBeat is $275.14 versus recent trading near $239. Salesforce Remains Down Over 12 Months
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s investment in Anthropic and other AI startups is being viewed as a potentially valuable strategic position. CEO Marc Benioff said the Anthropic investment could eventually be worth “tens of billions,” helping offset the company’s inability to invest in OpenAI because of its Microsoft relationship. Salesforce’s investment in Anthropic
• Positive Sentiment: Recent fundamentals provide support: Salesforce last reported $5.90 in quarterly EPS versus a $3.27 consensus estimate, $11.35 billion in revenue, and 10.8% year-over-year revenue growth. A director also purchased nearly $1 million of shares, a potential confidence signal. Salesforce insider purchase filing
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s reported $25 billion “bet on itself” and its valuation are attracting attention, but investors remain focused on whether capital allocation and AI investments can translate into durable growth. Options imply a wide roughly one-year trading range of $152 to $368, highlighting elevated uncertainty. Salesforce Just Bet $25 Billion on Itself
• Negative Sentiment: Analysts and industry commentators warn that AI could pressure Salesforce’s traditional software economics. Larger customer and product bases may make it harder to adapt quickly, while commentary on Agentforce-related usage-based economics suggests profitability could deteriorate faster than expected. Salesforce AWU Economics Are Worsening

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on CRM. Daiwa Securities Group cut their target price on shares of Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Friday, September 11th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $315.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, September 2nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $275.14.

Salesforce Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $211.53 and its 200-day simple moving average is $189.79. The firm has a market cap of $195.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.08 and a beta of 1.20.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%.The firm had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.91 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, September 17th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 16.04%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 4,176 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 18th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the acquisition, the director owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at $4,486,958.84. This represents a 28.66% increase in their position. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its stake in Salesforce by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after buying an additional 659,573 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth approximately $11,396,844,000. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,751,073,000 after buying an additional 791,345 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.5% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 19,672,684 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,211,515,000 after purchasing an additional 2,347,478 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc is a cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) technology and related enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, data analytics and business operations through subscription-based software and cloud services.

The company’s product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud and the Salesforce Platform. Salesforce also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data visualization and analytics, MuleSoft for application integration, and artificial intelligence capabilities, including its Agentforce platform for building and deploying AI agents.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and serves businesses and organizations across a broad range of industries and geographic markets worldwide.