D.A. Davidson & CO. Lowers Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

D.A. Davidson & CO. decreased its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 7.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 41,503 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 3,566 shares during the period. D.A. Davidson & CO.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $9,836,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Bigelow Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% during the third quarter. Bigelow Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,915 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $454,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares in the last quarter. Oregon Pacific Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Salesforce by 11.1% during the third quarter. Oregon Pacific Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,396 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $331,000 after buying an additional 139 shares during the period. Foronjy Financial LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 17.3% during the 3rd quarter. Foronjy Financial LLC now owns 1,022 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $242,000 after buying an additional 151 shares in the last quarter. Motco boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Motco now owns 41,104 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $9,742,000 after buying an additional 1,487 shares in the last quarter. Finally, TriaGen Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 3rd quarter worth about $281,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on CRM shares. Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $360.00 to $340.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $430.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, December 2nd. Bank of America dropped their price target on Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 17th. Barclays upped their price target on Salesforce from $316.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “underperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $327.74.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other news, Director G Mason Morfit purchased 96,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 5th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $260.58 per share, for a total transaction of $25,015,680.00. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 2,994,509 shares in the company, valued at approximately $780,309,155.22. This represents a 3.31% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 1,936 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $258.64 per share, with a total value of $500,727.04. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 10,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,761,499.28. This trade represents a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 159,534 shares of company stock worth $37,814,212. Company insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Up 1.0%

CRM stock opened at $256.21 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $240.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98. Salesforce Inc. has a 1-year low of $221.96 and a 1-year high of $367.09. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $249.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $251.53.

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

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th will be given a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 22.16%.

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.