Merit Financial Group LLC Increases Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Merit Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 16.2% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 33,229 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,634 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $8,803,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Rockland Trust Co. boosted its position in Salesforce by 1,145.6% in the 3rd quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 13,066 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $3,097,000 after buying an additional 12,017 shares during the last quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Salesforce by 98.3% in the 3rd quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 21,455 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,085,000 after buying an additional 10,633 shares during the last quarter. Midwest Trust Co boosted its position in Salesforce by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Midwest Trust Co now owns 187,071 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $44,336,000 after buying an additional 4,233 shares during the last quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp boosted its position in Salesforce by 15.1% in the 3rd quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 467,551 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $113,420,000 after buying an additional 61,270 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AGF Management Ltd. boosted its position in Salesforce by 42.2% in the 3rd quarter. AGF Management Ltd. now owns 281,054 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $66,610,000 after buying an additional 83,403 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have weighed in on CRM. Mizuho decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Wolfe Research reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $215.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Roth Mkm decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $395.00 to $325.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, December 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $279.18.

Insider Transactions at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $194.62 per share, for a total transaction of $500,173.40. Following the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: BTIG reaffirmed a “buy” on CRM and set a $255 price target (≈40% upside vs. current levels), giving institutional backing that can support further upside. BTIG Reaffirms Buy on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce launched Headless 360, positioning its full platform as infrastructure for AI agents — a strategic move that could broaden addressable market and accelerate enterprise AI spending across the Salesforce stack. Salesforce launches Headless 360
• Positive Sentiment: Customer wins/expansions show traction for Agentforce 360 — travel platform Engine expanded use of AI agents and Slack, automating ~50% of chat cases, cutting handle time ~15% and improving satisfaction, which supports revenue upsell potential for contact-center automation. Engine expands Agentforce 360
• Positive Sentiment: Data 360 adoption shows strong momentum (reported ~200% ARR growth), highlighting a potential new growth driver for larger enterprise contracts and higher‑value deals. CRM’s Data 360 Momentum Builds
• Neutral Sentiment: Software-sector momentum helped lift CRM amid a broad bounce in the IGV ETF; sector flows can amplify CRM moves but are not company‑specific fundamentals. Software Stocks Finish Week Hot
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst and media bullishness (e.g., opinion pieces expressing strong conviction) supports sentiment but is not new fundamental data; it can sustain momentum if paired with continued execution. Why I Have Strong Conviction In This Stock
• Negative Sentiment: A recent CMSWire review of Agentforce highlights strengths but also gaps versus rivals (implementation complexity and feature gaps in some areas), a reminder that competitive execution and product parity risk could temper adoption speed. Salesforce Agentforce Contact Center Review

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $182.13 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $168.10 billion, a PE ratio of 23.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 1.29. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $187.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $224.13. 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 Inc. has a 1 year low of $163.52 and a 1 year high of $296.05.

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

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be paid a $0.44 dividend. This is a boost from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.54%.

Salesforce announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase program 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 programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce 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.