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Salesforce (CRM) to hire 3,300 people after layoffs earlier this year- Bloomberg News
By: Investing.com | September 14, 2023
(Reuters) -Cloud-based software firm Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Inc is hiring 3,300 people across various departments after cutting 10% jobs in January this year, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing CEO Marc Benioff.
"Our job is to grow the company and to continue to achieve great margins," Benioff told Bloomberg in an interview. "We know we have to hire thousands of people."
The new hires will be split among sales, engineering and those working on Saleforce's data cloud product, Chief Operating Officer Brian Millham told Bloomberg.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
Salesforce in January said it plans to cut jobs by 10% and close some offices, after rapid pandemic hiring left it with a bloated workforce amid an economic slowdown.
The enterprise software maker has tried to navigate a downturn in tech spending by rolling out a suite of artificial intelligence features and raising prices for the first time in seven years.
Earlier this month, it launched a generative AI tool, called Einstein Copilot, that would be available across its suite of apps from instant messaging service Slack to data visualization tool Tableau and can be tailored by its clients to meet their needs.
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$CRM Insiders at Salesforce have cashed out over $32 Million in shares over the last two weeks
By: TrendSpider | September 13, 2023
• $CRM Insiders at Salesforce have cashed out over $32 Million in shares over the last two weeks
The majority of selling has came from the CEO, Marc Benioff.
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Salesforce $CRM and Google $GOOGL announced today an expansion of their strategic partnership to bring together Salesforce and Google Workspace to drive productivity with AI
By: Evan | September 12, 2023
• Salesforce $CRM and Google $GOOGL announced today an expansion of their strategic partnership to bring together Salesforce and Google Workspace to drive productivity with AI.
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Salesforce (CRM) Dreamforce Conference Kick Off
By: Bespoke Investment Group | September 11, 2023
Salesforce (CRM) kicks off its annual Dreamforce Conference tomorrow. Honing in on the buzzword of the year, AI innovation will be front and center with CEO March Benioff's keynote scheduled to focus on the company's usage of AI in its customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Leading up to the conference, Salesforce has been one of the top performing Tech stocks in the S&P 500, rallying 69% year to date. Historically, CRM has often risen in the six months ahead of the conference and has also risen more often than not in the short-term leading up to the start of the event. Once the Dreamforce Conference begins, CRM has historically averaged a 1.24% gain over the three-to-four-day span with positive returns a little over half the time. From there, CRM usually gives up some of its gains one week later, but the following months are once again positive, although it's worth pointing out that the stock has traded lower in the three months after Dreamforce in each of the last three years.
Compared to the Tech sector, using the S&P 500 Tech ETF (XLK) as a proxy, performance in the lead up to the conference over the past twenty years has usually been positive. In fact, returns in the six months leading up to the conference have been positive 80% of the time. Unlike CRM, when the conference is underway, the Tech sector has fallen more than half the time with an average drop of 0.15%. The weakness has also been prevalent one week after the conference with an average drop of 0.65%. However, that weakness tended to be short-lived with gains on an average basis one, three, and six months after the conclusion of the conference.
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1832 Asset Management L.P. Buys 768,436 Shares of Salesforce, Inc. (CRM)
By: MarketBeat | September 9, 2023
• 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its stake in shares of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 208.2% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,137,438 shares of the CRM provider's stock after buying an additional 768,436 shares during the quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. owned 0.12% of Salesforce worth $227,237,000 at the end of the most recent quarter...
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Salesforce.com, Inc. $CRM Nice curl back up , watching for earnings highs now
By: Options Mike | September 9, 2023
• $CRM Nice curl back up , watching for earnings highs now.
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Salesforce.com, Inc. $CRM Great report Q3 guidance fabulous.. Q4.. lackluster
By: Options Mike | September 4, 2023
• $CRM Great report Q3 guidance fabulous.. Q4.. lackluster.
No power after the the gap up so far.. gap slowly being erroded.
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Salesforce's $CRM Q2 visualized
By: Savvy Trader | September 1, 2023
• Salesforce's $CRM Q2 visualized.
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The shares of Salesforce (CRM) are enjoying post-earnings tailwinds today
By: Schaeffer's Investment Research | August 31, 2023
• Salesforce reported strong second-quarter results and lifted its full-year forecast
• CRM is up over 65% since the start of 2023
The shares of Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) are enjoying post-earnings tailwinds today, after the Dow member posted better-than-expected second-quarter results and lifted its full-year forecast. Analysts flooded CRM with bear notes after the event, with no fewer than 21 brokerages lifting their price targets.
Of the 38 analysts in coverage, 24 carry a "buy" or better rating, with 13 a "hold," and one "strong sell." Meanwhile, the current 12-month consensus price target of $252.88 sits at a 13.4% premium to current levels.
At last glance, CRM was up 3.6% at $222.77, earlier as high as $228.79, and headed for its fifth-straight daily win. Today's pop also pushed the stock back above its 60-day moving average. Since the start of the year, Salesforce stock is up 68.7%.
So far in the options pits today, 127,000 calls and 83,000 puts have been exchanged, which is already 5.1 times the average daily options volume. The weekly 9/1 230-strike call is the most active contract, with new positions opening there.
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Salesforce rallies as profitability push pays off
By: Investing.com | August 31, 2023
(Reuters) -Salesforce rallied over 5% on Thursday after its strong earnings report showed that cost cuts were working and demand was holding up better than expectations in a turbulent economy.
The business software firm behind workplace-messaging tool Slack and data analytics tool Tableau was set to add around $10 billion to its market value. The stock has risen more than 60% so far this year.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) bumped up its annual forecast for adjusted operating margin on Wednesday to about 30% from 28%, with CFO Amy Weaver stressing the new figure "is a floor, not a ceiling".
Wall Street analysts lauded the move, noting the benefits from an aggressive profitability push at a company that has traditionally focused on growing bigger through acquisitions.
After a nudge from activist investors earlier in the year, the Marc Benioff-led firm has laid off thousands, reduced office space and dialled back employee perks this year to prop up profitability that has for years trailed rivals.
The "ceiling is the roof" for margins, analysts at Raymond James said. The brokerage was among the 26 that lifted their price targets on the stock, pushing the median view to $255, according to Refinitiv data. That is nearly 19% higher than the stock's last close.
Wednesday's report also eased some concerns about slowing growth at the company.
While the 11% rise in second-quarter revenue was much slower than historic growth rates of around 20% to 30%, the figure breezed past Wall Street expectations, and Salesforce also raised its annual revenue forecast.
The company has tried to navigate a downturn in tech spending by rolling out a suite of artificial intelligence features and raising prices for the first time in seven years.
The results should drive up investor confidence in the company, brokerage Raymond James said, adding that "shares are simply too low priced" for a company executing well in a tough economy.
Salesforce trades at 25 times its forward 12 months earnings estimates, compared with the industry median of 15.14.
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Salesforce (CRM) price target raised
By: FLOWrensics | August 31, 2023
• Salesforce price target raised to $230 from $210 at TD Cowen »07:34
price target raised to $265 from $250 at Canaccord »07:24
price target raised to $220 from $210 at Baird »07:08
price target raised to $240 from $220 at UBS »07:06 $CRM
price target raised to $255 from $250 at Mizuho »06:39
price target raised to $280 from $250 at BofA »06:37
price target raised to $275 from $250 at Wells Fargo »06:23
price target raised to $250 from $235 at Oppenheimer »06:20
price target raised to $229 from $220 at Citi »05:58
price target raised to $240 from $230 at JPMorgan »05:44
price target raised to $260 from $245 at Barclays
price target raised to $275 from $250 at Jefferies »05:28
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Today Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) is the best performer in the DJIA
By: Thom Hartle | August 31, 2023
• Today (8:34 CST), the best performer in the DJIA is Salesforce.com Inc. CRM.
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Salesforce (CRM) forecasts third-quarter revenue above estimates
By: Investing.com | August 30, 2023
(Reuters) - Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) projected third-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday as it benefits from a recent price hike and resilient demand for its cloud and business software offerings in an uncertain economy.
The company said it expects revenue to be between $8.70 billion and $8.72 billion in the current quarter, compared with estimates of $8.66 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
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Salesforce Stock is UP $13.44 or 6.20% after double beat on earnings report as I post.
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Salesforce $CRM Just Reported Earnings: Double Beat
By: Evan | August 30, 2023
• SALESFORCE $CRM JUST REPORTED EARNINGS
EPS of $2.12 beating expectations of $1.88
Revenue of $8.6B beating expectations of $8.53B
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Salesforce $CRM reports earnings tomorrow after the markets close, Wall ST is expecting numbers of
By: Evan | August 29, 2023
• Salesforce $CRM reports earnings tomorrow after the markets close, Wall ST is expecting numbers of
EPS of $1.89 up 58.8% YoY
Revenue of $8.53B up 10.5% YoY
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Salesforce (CRM) renewals risk makes Citi cautious into earnings
By: Investing.com | August 28, 2023
Citi analysts lowered their price target on Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) stock by $10 to $220 per share.
The new price target implies an upside potential of about 5%. Salesforce is due to report its earnings on Wednesday, after market close.
“We reiterate our Neutral rating as top-line growth trends remain pressured amid renewal risk heading into CQ4/2024 and as expectations on margin expansion have largely played out,” analysts wrote in a note sent to Citi clients.
The analysts highlight several recent developments, including CRM’s “heavily marketed, yet relatively underwhelming AI event in June”, price increases, and organizational changes.
While Citi’s checks showed signs of improvement in new projects, this positive aspect was offset by growing concerns related to renewals and shelfware. These concerns, more prominently anticipated in Q3/Q4 compared to Q2, were coupled with reports of aggressive sales strategies employed to secure deals in Q2.
“We heard some partners mention how CRM has been using the surprise price increase to incentivize customers with open opportunities (upsells, etc.) to renew early. A big overhang remains the large contract renewal risk due to shelfware, which we worry about more for FQ4 (Citi 250 bps below street on Q4 cRPO) and next year,” analysts added.
CRM stock is up 58% year-to-date.
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5 Top Goldman Sachs Stock Picks Have 50% to 80% Upside Potential
By: 24/7 Wall St. | August 25, 2023
• Salesforce
This company was an innovator in customer relationship management software. Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) provides customer relationship management technology that brings companies and customers together worldwide. Its Customer 360 platform empowers its customers to work together to deliver connected experiences for their customers.
Salesforce’s Service offerings include:
• Sales, to store data, monitor leads and progress, forecast opportunities, gain insights through analytics and relationship intelligence and deliver quotes, contracts and invoices
• Service, which enables companies to deliver trusted and highly personalized customer service and support at scale
Its Service offerings also comprise flexible platform that enables companies of various sizes, locations and industries to build business apps to bring them closer to their customers with drag-and-drop tools; online learning platform that allows anyone to learn in-demand Salesforce skills; and Slack, a system of engagement.
Further Service offerings include:
• Marketing, which enables companies to plan, personalize and optimize one-to-one customer marketing journeys
• Commerce, which empowers brands to unify the customer experience across mobile, web, social and store commerce points
• Tableau, an end-to-end analytics solution serving various enterprise use cases
• MuleSoft, an integration offering that allows its customers to unlock data across their enterprise
The company provides its Service offerings for customers in financial services, health care and life sciences, manufacturing and other industries.
The company also offers professional services and in-person and online courses to certify its customers and partners on architecting, administering, deploying and developing its service offerings. The company provides its services through direct sales and consulting firms, systems integrators and other partners.
The Goldman Sachs target price is $325, while Salesforce stock has a consensus target of just $237.48. From Thursday’s $205.51 close, hitting the Goldman Sachs target would be more than a 55% gain.
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Salesforce (CRM) 2Q results likely to overcome low bar - Oppenheimer
By: Investing.com | August 24, 2023
Oppenheimer analysts reiterated an Outperform rating and $235 price target on Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) in a note Thursday ahead of the company's second-quarter results.
The analysts told investors there are mixed business trends for the company, but its results are likely to overcome a low bar.
"In our view, the earnings risk for CRM weighs slightly positive ahead of F2Q results despite our recent field checks pointing to mixed business trends for Salesforce and with investor expectations at higher levels for this earnings report," they wrote.
"Positively, we detected improvement to the demand environment and possibly stabilizing trends in the sales operations for Salesforce in F2Q," they added.
The estimates bar is low for Salesforce this quarter, according to Oppenheimer, and they believe there are enough positives in the business trends and bookings performance to raise its conviction in CRM displaying "modest upside to consensus estimates for CRPO growth, subscription revenue, and operating margin in F2Q."
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Today Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) is the best performer in the DJIA
By: Thom Hartle | August 21, 2023
• Today (8:33 CST), the best performer in the DJIA is Salesforce.com Inc. CRM.
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What's Next For The Best Performing Dow Stock Of 2023?
By: Barchart | August 9, 2023
Strength in the tech sector has been a huge stock market storyline in 2023, highlighted by the Nasdaq's best first-half performance in decades. This outperformance has spilled over to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DOWI), too. The broader Dow is up just 6.3% on the year, while shares of tech-focused component Salesforce Inc (CRM) have surged by 55% this year.
Valued at a market cap of $206 billion, CRM still trades 50% below its all-time highs. As the market's recent outperformers start to pull back, let's see if Salesforce can continue its impressive rally, or if investors should take their profits on this cloud stock.
www.barchart.com
Is Salesforce Stock A Buy, Sell Or Hold?
Salesforce is the leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform globally. Its cloud-based CRM applications across verticals such as sales, service, and marketing can be easily set up and managed, allowing companies to manage customer interactions on a single unified platform that's accessible across devices.
With over 150,000 companies using its platform, Salesforce has been the leading CRM software provider globally by sales for the last ten years. The company has tripled sales from $10.5 billion in fiscal 2018 to $31.4 billion in fiscal 2023 (ended in April). It's also the fastest-growing top-5 enterprise software company in the world.
In its fiscal Q1 of 2024, Salesforce reported revenue of $8.2 billion, an increase of 11% year over year. It onboarded several prominent clients in Q1, including Spotify (SPOT), Siemens (SIEGY), NASA, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Operating cash flow rose 22% year over year to $4.5 billion, while remaining performance obligations, or RPOs, were up 11% at $46.7 billion.
Salesforce emphasized its focus on transformation, and cost optimization drove results in Q1. It reported an adjusted operating margin of 27.6%, an increase of 1,000 basis points year over year - an exceptional result, given the higher pricing environment.
What's Next For CRM Stock Price And Investors?
Despite a tepid macro environment, Salesforce raised its margin targets for fiscal 2024. It expects to report an operating margin of 28% in 2024, an increase of 550 basis points compared to the year-ago period. It also expects this metric to improve to 30% in Q1 of fiscal 2025. Salesforce forecasts sales between $34.5 billion and $34.7 billion in fiscal 2024, an increase of 10% year over year.
Plus, due to cost-savings initiatives, Salesforce expects operating cash flow growth between 16% and 17%, with capital expenditures forecast at 2.5% of sales.
Earlier this year, Salesforce unveiled EinsteinGPT, the first generative AI for CRM. The product was showcased at the Trailhead DX event in March, and may be a key revenue driver for the company. EinsteinGPT allows customers to connect with multiple large language models while providing toolsets to design generative AI apps that can be built on "reasonable prompts."
Salesforce remains laser-focused on restructuring efforts that should improve profit margins amid a challenging period. Similar to megatrends like the cloud, social media, and smartphones, Salesforce expects AI to lead the next cycle of innovation.
What Is The Target Price For Salesforce Stock?
Priced at 31.5x forward earnings and 6.5x forward sales, Salesforce might seem expensive. However, most analysts remain optimistic about the stock's future prospects.
Out of the 26 analysts covering Salesforce stock, 22 recommend a "strong buy," 2 recommend a "moderate buy," 13 recommend a "hold,” and 1 recommends a “strong sell.” The average price target for CRM stock is $232.06, about 12% above its current trading price.
www.barchart.com
Due to its improving margins and cash flow profile, Salesforce can reinvest in growth, pursue accretive acquisitions, and enhance shareholder wealth via buybacks. Since August 2023, it has returned $6 billion to investors via share buybacks, representing 38 million shares. In Q1, it returned $2.1 billion to investors.
Salesforce is a company that enjoys high switching costs and a wide economic moat. Its expanding portfolio of products and solutions, improving financials, and market leadership position make it a top investment choice for long-term investors, despite its relatively high valuation and impressive gains already in 2023.
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Is Salesforce $CRM setting up to make another run for it here?
By: TrendSpider | August 1, 2023
• $CRM Is Salesforce setting up to make another run for it here?
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$CRM $1 Million+ Straddle Variation + Inter-Market Sweep Order (ISO)
By: Cheddar Flow | July 24, 2023
• $CRM $1M+ Straddle Variation + Inter-Market Sweep Order (ISO)
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Salesforce rises as it unveils pricing for generative AI tools
By: Markets & Mayhem | July 19, 2023
• KEY POINTS:
- Salesforce shares rose 2% in pre-market trading on Wednesday as it unveiled pricing for its generative artificial intelligence technology.
- In a release, San Francisco-based Salesforce said Sales GPT costs $50 per user per month and comes with a "limited" number of credits for its generative AI tool, Einstein GPT. Service GPT also sports a $50 per user per month price and has a "limited" number of credits for Einstein GPT as well.
- "As usage grows, customers can purchase Enterprise Expansion packs for Sales and Service teams," Salesforce added.
- Salesforce said in March that it would integrate generative artificial intelligence into every facet of the company, including sales, service, marketing, commerce and IT interaction.
- Pricing of Salesforce's generative AI tools comes one day after Microsoft unveiled pricing of its own generative AI tool, Copilot. Microsoft will charge $30 per user per month for the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on, a detail that impressed several Wall Street analysts.
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Salesforce $CRM with a bull flag breakout in premarket after the company unveils pricing for its new generative AI tools.
By: TrendSpider | July 19, 2023
• $CRM Salesforce with a bull flag breakout in premarket after the company unveils pricing for its new generative AI tools.
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Salesforce.com, Inc. $CRM Up big after raising their prices, which is a joke because these deals are all heavily negotiated. But market liked it
By: Options Mike | July 16, 2023
• $CRM Up big after raising their prices, which is a joke because these deals are all heavily negotiated. But market liked it. Again, wouldn't chase now, but see if it holds the 8D.
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Analysts hike Salesforce stock targets after rare price hikes
By: Investing.com | July 12, 2023
Shares of customer relations management company Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) closed nearly 4% higher on Tuesday after it announced a plan to increase prices beginning in August.
In a statement published on its website, Salesforce said it will be increasing list prices by an average of 9% across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Industries, and Tableau.
“Salesforce’s last list price increase was seven years ago, and since then the company has delivered 22 new releases, thousands of new features—including recent generative AI innovations—and invested more than $20 billion in research and development,” the company said in an announcement discussing the changes.
The cost of Professional Edition will increase by $5 to $80, Enterprise Edition will increase by $15 to $165, and Unlimited Edition will now cost $330, up $30.
In the view of analysts at Evercore ISI, the price hike is reasonable and could provide a potential tailwind for earnings.
"While there will clearly be some complaints from customers about the price increase, after a 7-year hiatus, we believe that a 9% increase is pretty reasonable given that other SaaS companies have passed through annual increases in the 4-5% range," analysts wrote in a note to clients.
They added, "Clearly, for big customers and customers adding new modules, we expect the net impact will not be anywhere near 9%, but we expect these price actions could provide a bit of a tailwind for CRM into 2H FY24 and 1H FY25."
Needham & Company analysts hiked the price target on CRM stock by $20 to $250 per share as new prices offer an "opportunity for top and bottom line benefit."
"We conducted a quick analysis to evaluate the potential incremental revenue and earnings uplift from this new pricing, and concluded that there is the potential for $229mm of revenue uplift in the first 12 months (4Q24 - 3Q25) and given there will be minimal costs tied to this additional revenue, EPS could increase $0.16 or a 2% uplift from our $8.01 estimate for this 12-month period. We estimate the full annualized impact (because 4Q24-3Q25 does not have a full year revenue impact) could approximate rev/EPS of $366mm/$0.26. The $0.26/share increment to annual EPS is 3.2% of our estimate and in line with yesterday's 3.9% share move," they said in a client note.
Similarly, BofA analysts estimate that the new prices will yield a 1-2% tailwind to cRPO as early as the second half of this year.
(Additional reporting by Senad Karaahmetovic)
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