Venture Visionary Partners LLC Grows Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Venture Visionary Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 7.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,909 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,405 shares during the period. Venture Visionary Partners LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $7,785,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth about $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter worth about $1,914,086,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at approximately $927,332,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on CRM. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. Guggenheim boosted their target price on Salesforce from $270.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $236.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Erste Group Bank upgraded Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $275.14.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other 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 value of $1,172,745.00. Following the sale, the director directly 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 filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 4,176 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 18,748 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,486,958.84. The trade was a 28.66% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Price Performance

NYSE:CRM traded down $0.45 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $224.54. The stock had a trading volume of 5,186,020 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,773,228. The stock has a market capitalization of $184.80 billion, a PE ratio of 20.47, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $224.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $192.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.84. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $146.32 and a 52 week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The business 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 business’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $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, sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company 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 dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 16.04%.

Salesforce Company Profile

Salesforce, Inc (NYSE: CRM) develops cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software and enterprise applications. Its platform helps organizations manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce, analytics, data integration and collaboration through subscription-based services.

The company’s product portfolio includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Platform, Data Cloud and Tableau. Salesforce also offers MuleSoft integration technology, Slack collaboration software and artificial intelligence capabilities through its Einstein platform.