Arvest Investments Inc. Sells 3,318 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Arvest Investments Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 45.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,046 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 3,318 shares during the period. Arvest Investments Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $1,072,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Evolution Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new position in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth $27,000. Marquette Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the 3rd quarter worth $26,000. Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Dorato Capital Management bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth $39,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on CRM. Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $281.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. KeyCorp dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $400.00 to $300.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Northland Securities cut their target price on Salesforce from $267.00 to $229.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 10th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their target price on Salesforce from $223.00 to $194.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $280.21.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber bought 2,571 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 9,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,854,347.40. This trade represents 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 hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was acquired 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 in the company, valued at $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Down 0.1%

CRM opened at $187.01 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $174.57 and a twelve month high of $296.05. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $194.55 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $228.83. The stock has a market cap of $172.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.94, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. The company had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. Salesforce’s revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm 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. As a group, equities analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current 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 paid a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 21.25%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s management 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.