Teacher Retirement System of Texas Has $78.67 Million Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 0.9% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 296,956 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,716 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas’ holdings in Salesforce were worth $78,667,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Aspire Growth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 1.2% during the third quarter. Aspire Growth Partners LLC now owns 3,355 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $795,000 after buying an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.1% in the third quarter. Abacus Planning Group Inc. now owns 1,420 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $337,000 after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the period. Byrne Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC now owns 4,331 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,147,000 after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the period. Code Waechter LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 5.3% in the third quarter. Code Waechter LLC now owns 871 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $209,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the period. Finally, ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 4.9% in the third quarter. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 961 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $228,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Expanded Google Cloud partnership — Salesforce and Google Cloud announced integrations allowing AI agents to execute end-to-end workflows across both platforms, which can reduce data fragmentation for customers and broaden enterprise adoption of Salesforce AI offerings. Salesforce and Google Cloud Enable AI Agents
• Positive Sentiment: Strong AI revenue traction — A Seeking Alpha piece highlights Agentforce ARR hitting ~$800M with 169% y/y growth and rising agentic actions, suggesting the transition to usage-based AI pricing is generating meaningful upside to growth and could offset seat-based pressure. Salesforce: AI Is A True Acceleration Driver
• Positive Sentiment: Product execution on enterprise AI — Salesforce upgraded Agent Fabric with a centralized control plane, discovery of external models, workflow mapping and governance features that make it easier for large customers to manage multi-vendor AI deployments. This improves enterprise defensibility. Salesforce Pushes Deeper Into Enterprise AI Control
• Positive Sentiment: Momentum and analyst support — Coverage noting Salesforce as a strong momentum/large-cap buy and a Truist Securities reiteration of Buy with a $280 target provide buy-side validation that the company’s AI roadmap and developer ecosystem are persuasive to some wall street analysts. Is Salesforce One of the Best Large Cap Stocks
• Positive Sentiment: Notable investor interest — Reports that Michael Burry is building positions in software names, including Salesforce, can attract attention from value-oriented and event-driven market participants. Michael Burry plans to buy Salesforce
• Neutral Sentiment: Comparisons to peers — Several articles compare Salesforce to competitors like Adobe and Oracle; some analyses favor Adobe on near-term AI growth and valuation, which frames relative positioning but doesn’t change Salesforce’s standalone fundamentals. Salesforce vs. Adobe
• Negative Sentiment: Piper Sandler trims price target — Piper Sandler cut its CRM price target from $250 to $215 while keeping an Overweight rating; the reduction signals caution about competitive/AI risks and may cap near-term upside even if the long-term thesis remains positive. Piper Sandler PT Reduced
• Negative Sentiment: AI disruption concerns among investors — Notes from investors/letters (e.g., Vulcan Value) highlight fears that AI could disrupt Salesforce’s traditional seat-based revenue model or intensify competition, a narrative that can pressure sentiment until usage-based revenue proves durable. AI Disruption Fears

Salesforce Stock Performance

Salesforce stock opened at $189.91 on Thursday. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $163.52 and a 12-month high of $296.05. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $187.68 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $222.98. The stock has a market cap of $155.39 billion, a PE ratio of 24.32, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 1.29.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.78 earnings per share. 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, analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.9%. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.54%.

Salesforce declared that its board has approved a share buyback program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CRM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Truist Financial set a $280.00 price target on Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. DA Davidson decreased their price target on Salesforce from $235.00 to $200.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 27th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on Salesforce from $250.00 to $215.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, April 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $279.18.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Laura Alber purchased 2,571 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. This trade represents a 36.94% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 2,570 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $194.62 per share, for a total transaction of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. The trade was a 23.11% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

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.