Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC Increases Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 4.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 50,144 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,340 shares during the period. Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $11,884,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. Painted Porch Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 260.0% during the 2nd quarter. Painted Porch Advisors LLC now owns 90 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 65 shares during the last quarter. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at $27,000. Marquette Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc increased its stake in Salesforce by 383.3% during the second quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc now owns 116 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $32,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Maseco LLP acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $34,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CRM. DA Davidson lifted their price objective on Salesforce from $225.00 to $235.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 5th. Bank of America reduced their price target on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 17th. Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “underperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $375.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $400.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One investment 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 assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $326.50.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $258.64 per share, with a total value of $500,727.04. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 10,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. The trade was a 22.15% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director G Mason Morfit acquired 96,000 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on Friday, December 5th. The shares were bought at an average price of $260.58 per share, for a total transaction of $25,015,680.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 2,994,509 shares in the company, valued at $780,309,155.22. The trade was a 3.31% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 150,534 shares of company stock valued at $35,636,954 over the last 90 days. 3.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on CRM with a Buy and a $330 price target, signaling sizable upside from current levels and likely supporting renewed institutional interest. Salesforce (CRM) Receives a Buy from Goldman Sachs
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce launched an upgraded Slackbot (Agentforce/Slack integration) powered by Anthropic models and announced general availability — a product push that strengthens its AI agent strategy and could help monetize data across customers. Salesforce releases updated Slackbot powered by Anthropic’s AI model Salesforce Announces the General Availability of Slackbot – Your Personal Agent for Work
• Positive Sentiment: MarketBeat included Salesforce in a list of AI/cross-cloud winners, highlighting Agentforce and a path to accelerating growth — a narrative that supports longer-term upside. 5 AI Stocks Positioned to Win, No Matter What (CRM)
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and industry pieces (Zacks, MSN review) are dissecting Salesforce’s strategy (Data 360, Agentforce) as management leans on higher‑value AI/analytics products to counter slowing top-line growth — a potential multi-quarter transition that creates execution risk and opportunity. Can Salesforce’s Data 360 Push Drive Its Next Phase of Sales Growth? Salesforce CRM review
• Negative Sentiment: MSN and other reports note a sharp intraday selloff—investors appear to be reacting to mixed signals (solid EPS beat but cooler revenue/growth trends and transition execution risk), prompting heavier trading and downside pressure. This market reaction helps explain why shares are falling despite positive product and analyst news. Why Salesforce (CRM) shares are plunging today

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $240.95 on Wednesday. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $221.96 and a twelve month high of $367.09. The firm has a market cap of $225.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.17, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $250.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $251.12.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 18th were issued a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 22.16%.

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.