Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Trading Down 1.7% – Here’s Why

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) traded down 1.7% on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $164.78 and last traded at $166.5970. 8,123,756 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 42% from the average session volume of 13,949,563 shares. The stock had previously closed at $169.52.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc cut Salesforce’s outlook to Sector Weight from Overweight and lowered its FY2028 EPS estimate, citing concern that Agentforce may not become a major growth driver as quickly as investors expected. Salesforce Stock Downgraded at ‘Possibly Exactly the Wrong Time’
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary from CNBC and Jim Cramer added to the cautious tone, with the view that Salesforce’s stock could remain weak if growth slows and that “cheap can still get cheaper.” Why Salesforce is staying in the portfolio despite a harsh analyst downgrade
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to support adoption of agentic AI, which could strengthen its international AI strategy and customer relationships, but it also increases scrutiny on whether heavy AI spending will produce a payoff. Can Salesforce’s (CRM) Latest $1 billion Investment Change The Stock’s Fortunes?
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also launched new Slackbot capabilities and announced a manufacturing customer engagement partnership, showing continued product momentum, though these updates were not enough to offset near-term concerns. Salesforce Launches MCP-Powered Capabilities for Slackbot

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on CRM. Guggenheim raised Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Piper Sandler cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered shares of Salesforce from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.18. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $172.25 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $194.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. 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, research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Salesforce

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd increased its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during 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 period. SFE Investment Counsel lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% in the 4th quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 1st quarter valued at about $1,004,000. Eminence Capital LP increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% during the third quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $196,837,000 after buying an additional 43,888 shares during the period. Finally, Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $997,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

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.