Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms Buy Rating for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by equities researchers at Needham & Company LLC in a report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $400.00 price objective on the CRM provider’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 94.17% from the company’s current price.

CRM has been the topic of several other reports. Citigroup reissued a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 12th. HSBC upped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, DA Davidson set a $200.00 price objective on Salesforce in a report on Thursday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $250.49.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.2%

NYSE:CRM opened at $206.01 on Thursday. Salesforce has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $177.13 and a 200-day moving average of $181.60. The company has a market cap of $168.72 billion, a PE ratio of 23.84, a PEG ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16. 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 issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $2.63. The business had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.91 EPS. 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 research analysts expect that Salesforce will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Salesforce

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. California State Teachers Retirement System raised its stake in Salesforce by 13,260.5% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 188,085,056 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $29,465,405,000 after purchasing an additional 186,677,290 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at about $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its position 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 acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after buying an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Results exceeded expectations. Salesforce reported adjusted EPS of $5.90 versus the $3.27 consensus estimate, while revenue rose 10.8% year over year to $11.35 billion, slightly above forecasts. Salesforce Q2 Earnings and Revenues Top Estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Higher full-year outlook signals confidence. Salesforce raised fiscal 2027 guidance to $46.1 billion-$46.4 billion in revenue and $16.67-$16.71 in EPS. Its third-quarter EPS forecast of $3.42-$3.44 also exceeds the $3.16 analyst estimate. Salesforce Raises Annual Revenue Forecasts
• Positive Sentiment: AI adoption is becoming a growth catalyst. Agentforce annual recurring revenue reached $1.5 billion, and management said AI usage on the platform has increased sixfold. The figures support Salesforce’s argument that autonomous agents are expanding—not undermining—its CRM ecosystem. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Call Highlights
• Positive Sentiment: Expanded Anthropic partnership strengthens the AI narrative. The new “Claudeforce” integration brings Anthropic’s Claude into Salesforce workflows, data and business processes, potentially increasing enterprise engagement and supporting the company’s competitive positioning. Salesforce and Anthropic Announce Claudeforce
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support adds momentum. Citizens JMP reiterated a Market Outperform rating with a $315 target, while Canaccord maintained a Buy rating and a $225 target. Citizens JMP Market Outperform Rating
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader technology sentiment also improved after Nvidia delivered strong results and an optimistic AI outlook, lifting confidence in continued enterprise AI spending. Nvidia Outlook Boosts Markets
• Negative Sentiment: Investors remain sensitive to whether AI agents could eventually cannibalize traditional software revenue, and software stocks continue to face elevated volatility. Salesforce’s forecast also includes expected acquisitions, making organic growth an important metric to monitor.

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.