Salesforce shares fluctuate on Friday, analysts raise price targets

Salesforce Inc. shares pulled back on Friday before rebounding, a natural profit-taking and sector consolidation move after the stock surged 22.5% on Thursday. Nasdaq futures fell 0.08%, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.14%.

Analyst Price Target Updates

Following the sharp rally the previous day, Wall Street firms updated their price targets on Thursday. Citi maintained a Neutral rating and raised its target to $233. JPMorgan maintained an Overweight rating and lifted its target to $265, while Mizuho kept an Outperform rating and raised its target to $265.

Quarterly Earnings Beat Expectations

Salesforce reported fiscal second-quarter results on Thursday, with revenue up 11% year-over-year to $11.35 billion, beating analyst estimates of $11.32 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $5.90, well above the consensus estimate of $3.27.

Anthropic Partnership Expansion

The rally on Thursday was further fueled by Salesforce's expanded enterprise product launch with Anthropic. According to CNBC, the tool allows sales professionals to access Salesforce records and execute tasks directly within Anthropic's Claude chatbot.

Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei told CNBC that the company has invested "significant effort" in managing data access, adding that the two firms are building "enterprise-grade data privacy safeguards."

Technical Landscape

From a trend perspective, CRM remains strong: shares closed at $249.19, trading 24.3% above the 20-day moving average and 24.2% above the 200-day moving average, indicating robust medium-term upward momentum.

The Relative Strength Index stands at 80.30, the clearest momentum reading, placing the stock in firmly overbought territory. On the moving average structure front, the 20-day average sits above the 50-day average, but the 50-day average remains below the 200-day average, suggesting the stock is still working to fully "repair" its long-term trend.

CRM share price update: As of Friday's latest data, Salesforce shares rose 2.45% to $258.21.