Wells Fargo’s Tech Stocks To Beat The S&P: 14 Top AI & Non-AI Stocks

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7. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q3 2024: 116

NTM EPS Estimate: $10.47

Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is a software-as-a-service company that caters to the needs of the customer relationship management industry. This business model by default means that the firm has to focus on its margins, recurring revenue, and the value of its customer deals. A delivery on these fronts injects tailwinds into Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s share price and vice-versa. The stock has been lackluster this year as the shares have gained 28.8% year-to-date. This is on the back of investors’ worries about AI disrupting the consumer service industry, as we also alluded to in the introduction to our piece. However, Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s shares have been doing well in the latter half of the year. They are up by 11% since the start of November on the back of catalysts such as its AI product called AI Agentforce. Consequently, future performance depends on the ability of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) to blend AI into its business model and benefit from its sizable market share.

Polen Capital mentioned Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q3 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:

“In the third quarter, we purchased new positions in Apple and Oracle and eliminated our small positions in Nike and Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM). We exited our position in Salesforce to fund better opportunities in Shopify and MSCI. Salesforce is seeing slower revenue growth than we would have expected, given the weakening macroeconomic environment. Furthermore, since its core end markets in customer relationship management (“CRM”) and Service are fairly mature, a lower growth level versus our expectations could persist for some time.”

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