First Merchants Corp Has $273,000 Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

First Merchants Corp decreased its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 69.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,154 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 2,615 shares during the period. First Merchants Corp’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $273,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in CRM. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. grew its holdings in Salesforce by 4.0% in the second quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. now owns 87,331 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,814,000 after purchasing an additional 3,387 shares during the period. Grant Private Wealth Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,458,000. Advyzon Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 57.4% in the 2nd quarter. Advyzon Investment Management LLC now owns 1,884 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $514,000 after buying an additional 687 shares during the period. Atalanta Sosnoff Capital LLC increased its position in Salesforce by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter. Atalanta Sosnoff Capital LLC now owns 206,614 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $56,342,000 after buying an additional 16,176 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Country Club Bank raised its stake in Salesforce by 337.8% during the 3rd quarter. Country Club Bank now owns 20,632 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,057,000 after buying an additional 15,919 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on CRM shares. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $275.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Mizuho set a $340.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, December 10th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have assigned a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $327.74.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Parker Harris sold 134,662 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $234.70, for a total value of $31,605,171.40. Following the sale, the insider owned 139,767 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,803,314.90. The trade was a 49.07% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Marc Benioff sold 2,250 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, October 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $258.20, for a total value of $580,950.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 11,911,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,075,567,632.20. This trade represents a 0.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 157,284 shares of company stock valued at $37,274,684 in the last three months. Company insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.2%

NYSE:CRM opened at $266.06 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 0.98. The firm has a market cap of $249.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.26. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $250.25 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $251.64. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $221.96 and a 52 week high of $367.09.

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

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

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.