Shares of Salesforce.com Inc. fell 2% in morning trade Wednesday, as a downbeat fourth-quarter outlook offset a third-quarter profit and sales beat, but the customer relationship management company received a flood of price target increases by Wall Street analysts. Of the 46 analysts surveyed by FactSet, 27 raised their price targets, lifting the average target to $120.86 from $109.10 at the end of October. Canaccord Genuity’s Richard Davis, who raised his target to $130 from $120, went as far as saying, “we do not know how anyone can reasonably argue that Salesforce is not one of, if not the highest quality software companies on the planet.” Regarding Salesforce’s downbeat outlook, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Murphy said that it “follows the recent pattern of under promising and over delivering.” Murphy kept his target at $120, and his rating at overweight, saying the companies beat of billings guidance was the biggest in a year and a half. Analyst Brent Bracelin at KeyBanc Capital boosted his target to $124 from $108, saying the company is trending toward a doubling in revenue to $20 billion by fiscal 2022. The stock has soared 55.8% year to date, and closed at a record high on Tuesday, while the iShares North American Tech-Software ETF has rallied 45.5% and the S&P 500 has climbed 16.0%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
From:: Stock Market News