Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Shares Gap Down – Time to Sell?

Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s share price gapped down prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $166.58, but opened at $158.33. Salesforce shares last traded at $162.0170, with a volume of 2,472,463 shares changing hands.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce is still getting support from bullish analysts who argue the selloff has gone too far, with Guggenheim recently upgrading the stock to Buy and calling the AI bear case overdone.
• Positive Sentiment: The company continues to expand its AI and data initiatives, including new Slackbot capabilities and broader Agentforce-related offerings, which could improve long-term revenue opportunities.
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce also announced a major U.S. Air Force fleet-management deal through Missionforce, showing that its software is gaining traction in large enterprise and government use cases.
• Neutral Sentiment: Some commentary says Salesforce may be “too cheap to ignore” after the stock’s sharp pullback, suggesting valuation is becoming more attractive to some investors.
• Neutral Sentiment: The company is spending heavily on AI, including a planned $1 billion investment in Switzerland, but investors remain uncertain about how quickly that spending will translate into faster growth.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and reduced confidence in Agentforce’s near-term impact are pressuring sentiment, reinforcing concerns that Salesforce’s AI strategy is taking longer to pay off than bulls expected.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Piper Sandler cut shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Weiss Ratings raised Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Macquarie Infrastructure cut their target price on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have 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 target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The company has a 50-day moving average of $172.63 and a 200-day moving average of $195.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $133.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.18.

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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.58 EPS. The firm’s quarterly 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. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of Salesforce

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Deane Retirement Strategies Inc. lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 17.4% in the 2nd quarter. Deane Retirement Strategies Inc. now owns 30,620 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $4,798,000 after buying an additional 4,545 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Science Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1,478.7% in the 2nd quarter. Wealth Science Advisors LLC now owns 2,368 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $371,000 after purchasing an additional 2,218 shares in the last quarter. HF Advisory Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.2% during the second quarter. HF Advisory Group LLC now owns 10,647 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,668,000 after purchasing an additional 1,238 shares during the last quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA grew its stake in Salesforce by 3.0% in the second quarter. Jacobs & Co. CA now owns 45,212 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $7,082,000 after purchasing an additional 1,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cardano Risk Management B.V. increased its holdings in Salesforce by 9.3% in the second quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 432,871 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $67,814,000 after buying an additional 36,865 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.