Hall Laurie J Trustee Boosts Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Hall Laurie J Trustee lifted its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 40.6% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 11,871 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,426 shares during the period. Hall Laurie J Trustee’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $2,813,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Painted Porch Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 260.0% in the second quarter. Painted Porch Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 65 shares during the last quarter. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth about $27,000. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 314.8% in the 1st quarter. CBIZ Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 112 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 383.3% in the 2nd quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc now owns 116 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Maseco LLP purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $34,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Director David Blair Kirk bought 1,936 shares (22% increase to his stake), signaling insider confidence in the company’s outlook; insider purchases often reassure investors about management’s view of valuation and prospects. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan argues the market is underestimating Salesforce’s AI opportunity — calling CRM “priced like a value stock” while AI-driven monetization ramps, which supports the thesis for re-rating if AI revenue acceleration materializes. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce agreed to acquire AI marketing firm Qualified, expanding its agentic/AI marketing stack and potentially creating cross-sell and product monetization opportunities within Marketing Cloud and Agentforce. Strategic tuck-ins can accelerate ARR and AI feature adoption. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: BTIG initiated coverage with a Buy and $335 target (roughly ~29% upside from current levels), adding upward analyst momentum and providing buy-side validation for CRM’s AI-led rebound thesis. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce remains a focus on market watchlists (Zacks note) and broader software sector recaps benchmark CRM performance; attention can boost liquidity but doesn’t change fundamentals immediately. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: MarketBeat/others note Salesforce’s recent EPS beat and guidance pointing to 2026 acceleration; that underpins the bullish narrative but is already partly reflected in sentiment and analyst revisions. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Morgan Stanley reduced its price target on CRM, a reminder that some sell-side desks remain cautious on near-term multiples and execution risk — this can temper rallies and add upside resistance until proofs of AI monetization appear. Read More.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Marc Benioff sold 2,250 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $252.28, for a total transaction of $567,630.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,005,051,131.88. The trade was a 0.02% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director G Mason Morfit purchased 96,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 5th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $260.58 per share, with a total value of $25,015,680.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 2,994,509 shares in the company, valued at $780,309,155.22. This represents a 3.31% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 170,784 shares of company stock worth $40,538,939 in the last quarter. 3.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on CRM. DA Davidson lifted their price target on Salesforce from $225.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 5th. Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $430.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, December 2nd. Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, September 4th. Finally, JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $430.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, October 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $326.68.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $259.64 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $246.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $251.67. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $221.96 and a 12 month high of $367.09. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $243.29 billion, a PE ratio of 34.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.25.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.86 by $0.39. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 14.41%. The company had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.27 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.41 earnings per share. Salesforce’s quarterly revenue was up 9.1% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 18th will be given a $0.416 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is currently 22.16%.

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.