Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Down 2.7% – Here’s What Happened

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s stock price was down 2.7% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $195.32 and last traded at $195.8590. 8,229,490 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 40% from the average session volume of 13,679,818 shares. The stock had previously closed at $201.37.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies substantial appreciation from recent levels. JPMorgan turns bullish on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating, adding to the improving analyst sentiment around CRM. Monness raises Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s planned $27.1 billion share-repurchase program could support earnings-per-share growth and provides valuation support, particularly as SaaS-sector sentiment improves. Salesforce buyback boost
• Positive Sentiment: Rising Agentforce adoption is positioning Salesforce as a significant enterprise “agentic AI” competitor to Microsoft and Oracle, potentially creating a new growth avenue from its large CRM customer base. Salesforce agentic AI strategy
• Negative Sentiment: UBS reportedly expects Salesforce to temper expectations for second-half revenue acceleration, reinforcing investor concerns that AI-related growth may take longer to appear in reported results. UBS on Salesforce revenue growth
• Negative Sentiment: Investor commentary continues to highlight substitute technologies and shifting AI opportunities as threats to Salesforce’s competitive position. A fund letter also indicated that Salesforce had lost favor amid these concerns. Salesforce faces substitute technology threats

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Piper Sandler cut shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Truist Financial cut Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and set a $185.00 price objective (down from $287.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $185.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Susquehanna assumed coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Trading Down 2.7%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $171.21 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $182.19. The stock has a market capitalization of $160.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.67, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 quarter last year, the firm earned $2.58 earnings per share. 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 anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth $25,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Finally, Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. 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.