Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Up 2% – Still a Buy?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) rose 2% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $184.45 and last traded at $184.3430. 8,398,615 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 39% from the average session volume of 13,830,417 shares. The stock had previously closed at $180.71.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on CRM shares. BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Truist Financial lowered Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Phillip Securities cut Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research note on Monday, June 29th. Macquarie Infrastructure decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $150.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $170.34 and a 200 day moving average price of $185.01. 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm 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, sell-side analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $25,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new position in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 410.3% in the first quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

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.