Citizens Jmp Reiterates Market Outperform Rating for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)‘s stock had its “market outperform” rating reiterated by equities researchers at Citizens Jmp in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $315.00 target price on the CRM provider’s stock. Citizens Jmp’s price target points to a potential upside of 75.97% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, May 22nd. DA Davidson lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $281.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Bank of America initiated coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, May 18th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price target for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on shares of Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $263.09.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.8%

NYSE CRM traded up $1.49 on Thursday, hitting $179.00. 8,991,961 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 12,893,763. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76. Salesforce has a 52-week low of $163.52 and a 52-week high of $276.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $146.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.98, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.14. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $181.23 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $211.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Salesforce will post 9.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the acquisition, the director owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. This represents a 36.94% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 2,570 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 13,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. The trade was a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Allen Capital Group LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 58.7% in the first quarter. Allen Capital Group LLC now owns 1,241 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $232,000 after acquiring an additional 459 shares in the last quarter. Axiom Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 1st quarter worth approximately $192,000. Summitry LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 4.1% in the first quarter. Summitry LLC now owns 223,478 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $41,717,000 after buying an additional 8,815 shares during the period. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the first quarter valued at about $1,907,000. Finally, Verus Capital Partners LLC boosted its position in Salesforce by 45.4% during the first quarter. Verus Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,154 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $402,000 after purchasing an additional 673 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Piper Sandler reaffirmed its Overweight rating on Salesforce and set a $215 price target, implying meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced an expanded collaboration with CVS Health to use Agentforce Health AI agents to improve call center service for millions of members and providers, highlighting new enterprise use cases for its AI platform. PR Newswire
• Positive Sentiment: In Q1, Salesforce reported $3.88 EPS and $11.13 billion in revenue, both above expectations, with revenue up 13% year over year and margins improving. Reuters
• Positive Sentiment: The company also lifted its FY2027 EPS guidance, signaling management still expects strong profitability even as investors question AI disruption risk. MarketBeat
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and media coverage remain focused on the key debate: whether Salesforce can maintain growth and monetize AI quickly enough to offset broader disruption concerns in enterprise software. CNBC
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the earnings beat, Salesforce’s near-term revenue outlook slightly missed Wall Street estimates, which is the main reason shares have been softer. Stocktwits

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.