HighTower Advisors LLC Reduces Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

HighTower Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 361,825 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 13,306 shares during the quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $56,683,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its position in Salesforce by 13,260.5% during the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 188,085,056 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $29,465,405,000 after purchasing an additional 186,677,290 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after buying an additional 47,189,352 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at $1,914,086,000. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.1%

CRM stock opened at $259.39 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $193.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $185.49. The firm has a market cap of $213.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.65, a PEG ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 1.20.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%.The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.91 earnings per share. The business’s revenue 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. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.65 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. Investors of record on Thursday, September 17th will be paid 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 16.04%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on CRM. KeyCorp cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $275.00 price objective (up from $250.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Salesforce from $205.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. CLSA initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, July 20th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price target on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fifteen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $266.50.

Insider Buying and Selling

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 completion of the transaction, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. This represents a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 3.50% 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.