Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Lowers Stock Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lowered its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 8.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 2,478,864 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 234,110 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $656,676,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Aspire Growth Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 1.2% in the third quarter. Aspire Growth Partners LLC now owns 3,355 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $795,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the last quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 3.1% in the third quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc. now owns 1,420 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $337,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC now owns 4,331 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,147,000 after acquiring an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. Code Waechter LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 5.3% in the third quarter. Code Waechter LLC now owns 871 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $209,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital A Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 40.9% in the second quarter. Capital A Wealth Management LLC now owns 155 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Down 3.4%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $164.99 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $163.52 and a 1 year high of $296.05. The firm has a market cap of $152.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.13, a PEG ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $189.91 and its 200-day simple moving average is $226.33.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.Salesforce’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.78 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 22.54%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong underlying fundamentals: recent coverage highlights Salesforce’s trailing‑12‑month revenue (~$41.5B), solid profitability (77.6% gross margin, ~13.9% profit margin), nearly $15B operating cash flow and $7.8 diluted EPS — all arguments that the company’s core business can justify a higher multiple over time. Salesforce Stock Is Dropping Today: What’s Going On?
• Positive Sentiment: Ecosystem wins / product integrations: Redpanda’s new real‑time, bidirectional connectors to Salesforce position CRM more as a central data hub — a feature that can increase platform stickiness and justify long‑term value capture. Salesforce Connectors From Redpanda Put Focus On CRM Valuation Gap
• Neutral Sentiment: Options activity signaling volatility: recent options flow has drawn attention — heightened options interest can presage larger moves (up or down) around earnings, product news or macro catalysts but is not a directional confirmation on its own. Is the Options Market Predicting a Spike in Salesforce Stock?
• Neutral Sentiment: Valuation debate / buy/hold view: some analysts note CRM is down sharply YTD (~35%) and argue the pullback plus ongoing AI adoption and improving growth make it a hold at current prices — this frames the decline as a potential buying opportunity for longer‑term investors. Salesforce Plunges 35% YTD: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold the Stock?
• Negative Sentiment: Sector shock from new AI models: reports about Anthropic’s latest model and broader headlines have sparked a selloff across software stocks, pressuring CRM as investors rotate toward AI infrastructure and hardware beneficiaries. Anthropic’s Latest AI Model Sends a Shockwave Through Software Stocks
• Negative Sentiment: Macro/strategy commentary: high‑profile commentary (e.g., Jim Cramer) indicates a renewed “buy hardware, sell software” rotation, which can keep downward pressure on valuation multiples for large software vendors like Salesforce. Cramer explains the divergence in tech stocks – and why software may continue to lag
• Negative Sentiment: Stock price technical and momentum concerns: coverage noting three‑year lows and a steep YTD decline highlight momentum weakness that can perpetuate selling until clearer positive catalysts emerge. Salesforce stock just crashed to 3-year lows; Here’s why
• Negative Sentiment: Competitive/product signals: items about alternatives (e.g., Slackbot as a CRM interface) and specialized Salesforce‑based solutions could be read as both ecosystem expansion and potential competitive friction for certain use cases. Slack instead of Salesforce: Slackbot becomes CRM interface

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on CRM shares. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $400.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Oppenheimer cut their price objective on Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Salesforce from $235.00 to $225.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, KeyCorp cut their price objective on Salesforce from $400.00 to $300.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $280.21.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at $1,854,347.40. This represents a 36.94% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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. 3.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.