Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Up 4.7% – Time to Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) was up 4.7% during trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $260.18 and last traded at $259.2920. Approximately 12,868,689 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 8% from the average daily volume of 14,038,386 shares. The stock had previously closed at $247.72.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley set a $315.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd. B. Riley Financial upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. 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 on the stock. Truist Financial reissued a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 target price (up from $280.00) on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, UBS Group restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $267.12.

Salesforce Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $213.40 billion, a PE ratio of 23.64, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $200.54 and its 200-day moving average is $187.24.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The company had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 21.99% and a return on equity of 24.90%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.91 earnings per share. 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, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total transaction of $1,172,745.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 5,437 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. This represents a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares during the last quarter. Fluent Financial LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,265,000. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce during the first quarter worth approximately $1,004,000. TAM Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the first quarter valued at approximately $40,945,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 2.5% in the first quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 127,739 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,846,000 after buying an additional 3,125 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.