We recently published a list of 11 Trending AI Stocks On Latest News and Analyst Ratings. Since Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) ranks 2nd on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Investors remain cautious following a major global selloff that shook the markets last week on recession fears. Analyst warnings around sky-high CapEx of tech companies and lack of visibility over returns are also expected to keep tech valuations in check in the coming weeks.
Last month, Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, while talking to CNBC, highlighted a report from Goldman Sachs that said returns of AI investments might fail to meet investors’ expectations.
“The amount of capital investment in this sector, which is billions of dollars now, is so large that it’s almost unimaginable that we are going to get a rate of return over the next few years that justifies the amount of investment,” McNamee said.
Talking to Bloomberg, JPMorgan Asset Management’s Aisa Ogoshi said that there is some “adjustment” coming for tech stocks as she expects the AI-centric rally to diversify to other sectors.
“The key is to keep an eye on the earnings trends. It’s easy to panic in these times but really, just sit down and look at the numbers and reassess our positioning.”
Asked whether she plans to reduce exposure to AI stocks in the coming days, the analyst said she’d be more “selective” when it comes to AI plays and will increase the quality of stocks in the portfolio.
For this article, we chose 11 trending AI stocks based on the latest news, earnings and analyst ratings. With each stock we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
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Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 154
BofA Securities believes Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is one of the best beaten-down tech stocks presenting an attractive entry point following the latest selloff.
According to Yahoo Finance data, Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is expected to see earnings growth of about 16% on a per-annum basis over the next five years. Data also shows the company is expected to deliver double-digit YoY EPS growth in the next ten out of eleven quarters.
While Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is primarily a customer relationship software company, with notable tools and platforms like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack, its most promising platform is Data Cloud when it comes to AI and software. The platform has 90% year-over-year growth and clocking in $400 million in FY2024. What does this platform do? It helps organizations process data from various departments and third-party cloud solutions. Powered by an AI-driven data engine, it analyzes metadata in real time to provide valuable insights, supporting sales, marketing, and customer service workflows.
As of the end of Q1 Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) had $17.7 billion in cash and low financial leverage.
Mizuho Securities analyst Gregg Moskowitz thinks the company is still “well situated” to help customers in digital transformation. However, the analyst thinks Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) would do so by prioritizing profitable growth. The analyst reiterated his Buy rating on the stock but cut his price target to $300 from $345.
Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss, who has an Overweight rating and a $320 price target on Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM), said that Salesforce’s PEG ratio of 1.2 shows the market is not pricing in operational discipline and earnings growth sustainability.
Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) declined nearly 20% due to a slowdown in revenue and bookings growth, part of a wider trend we’ve observed across enterprise software as companies defer spending on large projects given the uncertain macroeconomic environment. As mentioned, there has been an emerging narrative about prioritized spending on AI, cloud, and security over enterprise software spending that could eventually impair seat-based software over the longer term. Though there may be some near-term shifts in dollars toward GenAI, we believe the market for mission-critical enterprise software will remain robust well into the future. We will monitor the position closely, but we continue to believe that Salesforce is well-placed with its mission-critical software and high customer retention rates to weather these headwinds, lean on pricing power, and effectively monetize generative AI in its product suite.”
Overall, Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) ranks 2nd on Insider Monkey’s list titled 11 Trending AI Stocks On Latest News and Analyst Ratings. While we acknowledge the potential of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.