Costco, AutoZone, Salesforce and Dollar General are part of Zacks Earnings Preview
Salesforce (CRM) is set to release its earnings this Thursday after market close, and ahead of the print RBC Capital analyst Alex Zukin has reiterated his buy rating on CRM, while slashing his price target from $230 to $210. With the stock up 9% year-to-date, his price target still indicates upside potential of 18%. Here’s what he’s looking for on Thursday:The analyst has now adjusted his financial model for fiscal 1Q below the consensus expectation at $4.810B (+29% Y/Y) on increased conservatism for MuleSoft transactional revenues. Zukin also lowered his cRPO (current remaining performance obligation) estimates to $14.4B (+22%) below previous guidance for 23-24% growth.“For the full year we reduce MuleSoft revenue growth (from +42% to +14%) and bookings estimates (from -5% to -9%). These changes move our FY21 total rev estimates of $20.735B (+21% Y/Y) which is below guidance but above consensus” the analyst writes.Overall, he strikes a bullish tone, telling investors: “We are positive on CRM ahead of the company’s F1Q report, and while the company is not immune to global demand trends, we see Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Healthcare, FinServ and Contact Tracing driving bookings momentum.”Zukin sees a meaningful opportunity for Contact Tracing + Service Cloud sales to the government and large enterprise, adding “Specific to the quarter, we heard of solid wins in HC and Fins with no evidence of desperation or material discounting at the end of the quarter.”He also believes the company has instituted a 2x SPIF (double commissions) on all deals signed in F2Q. Given current valuation of ~6x CY21E revenue vs. high efficiency peers at ~16x CY21E revenues and ~37x FCF, we like the risk/reward, the analyst concludes.Based on the last three months of ratings, Salesforce boasts a Strong Buy analyst consensus with 23 buy ratings vs just 3 hold ratings and 1 sell rating. Meanwhile the average analyst price target works out at $194, indicating upside potential of 9%.(See CRM stock analysis on TipRanks).Related News: Apple To Reopen More Than 25 U.S. Stores This Week Google, Apple Roll Out Coronavirus Contact Tracing Technology Apple is Said to Snap Up Startup NextVR For Virtual Reality Content; Top Analyst Sees Buying Opportunity More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Hertz Sinks 11% After-Hours As Carl Icahn Sells Stake At $1.8B Loss * PhaseBio Explodes 82% After-Hours On FDA Nod For Covid-19 Clinical Trial * Google Pay App May Face Anti-Trust Probe In India – Report * Trump Threatens Twitter After It Labels His Tweets "Potentially Misleading"
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Salesforce has been trading well but has dipped over the past few days. Does that give it some room to run after earnings? Let's look at the stock.
This week is a shortened trading week with major markets closed Monday in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Investor focus will remain on the coronavirus and its impact on the U.S. economy as most states across the country continued their phased reopening plans.
Markets are closed for Memorial Day. Then, first-quarter earnings season continues with results from Costco, Dollar General, Salesforce, Nordstrom, and Ulta Beauty.
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Small businesses are the heart of Canadian communities and the backbone of Canada’s economy. Canadians everywhere have been supporting their local businesses throughout COVID-19, from ordering take-out to buying gift cards. Today, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canada’s leading and most representative business association, announced a new program, the Canadian Business Resilience Network Small Business Relief Fund, to provide small Canadian businesses from coast to coast to coast with $10,000 grants to help their recovery efforts during these unprecedented times.
Yahoo Finance catches up with HP's CEO Enrique Lores fresh off its second fiscal quarter earnings report.
Here is a sneak peek into how VMW, ADSK, ZS, OKTA and CRM are poised ahead of their earnings releases on May 28.
You're not imagining things. Computers are getting smarter every day.Artificial intelligence (AI) is a not-so-new technology that involves "smart" computers capable of demonstrating intelligence, usually through solving problems or learning. As the horsepower behind AI improves, the technology is able to perform increasingly complex tasks, from identifying new sales opportunities to steering vehicles. And that technology is driving the best AI stocks to strong outperformance this year, with many equities that either use or help power artificial intelligence boasting double-digit gains against a down market.In fact, you probably use AI every day, whether you realize it or not. Artificial intelligence powers personal assistants such as Alexa, Cortana and Siri. It also guides the search results you plug into your computer or smartphone, and it often helps determine the advertisements you see.It's an incredible investing opportunity, too. AI stocks are gunning after a market poised to grow from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $126 billion in 2025, according to estimates by emerging-technology research and consulting firm Omdia | Tractica.Here, we look at 10 of the best AI stocks to buy for investors in it for the long haul. Each stock has already outperformed considerably year-to-date, and the coronavirus outbreak still might rattle them in the short-term. But each also shows plenty of promise looking out to 2021, 2022 and beyond. SEE ALSO: 20 Best Stocks to Buy Now for the Next Bull Market
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) stock has enjoyed a strong recovery in recent weeks. The Software-as-a-Service giant saw its shares tumble from $195 to $115 during the March crash, but has rallied back above $170 now. Investors have shrugged off a slowdown in revenues at many internet companies -- in particular ones exposed to advertising -- by instead focusing on how the stay-at-home orders will speed the transition toward a digital-first economy.Source: Bjorn Bakstad / Shutterstock.com Specifically, Salesforce is likely to see a short-term slowdown in billings thanks to the virus. But the crisis may force a lot of previously offline companies to start using digital software to manage their sales channels; Salesforce could end up gaining from this in the long-term. Earnings On DeckIn any case, traders are wondering what will happen next, as Salesforce is set to report earnings next week. As of last quarter, it appeared Salesforce was experiencing accelerating growth. We can say that because while Salesforce grew revenues 29% for the full year, it saw revenues spike 35% higher last quarter. It was on an upward trajectory until the virus hit.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsNow, however, several analysts have cut estimates for Salesforce, and other related companies such as Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) on the expectation of a significant slowdown in revenue growth. Earnings reports from firms such as IBM (NYSE:IBM) have shown weakness in areas that could filter through to Salesforce as well. All in all, traders probably shouldn't expect a fantastic quarter, nor great guidance for the rest of the year either. But the market seems willing to discount 2020 and look to the future. Salesforce Is Still Finding New CustomersThere has been some concern about Salesforce's outlook in the near future. Surely with the economy in a slowdown, people will need less sales software, right? However, the good news is that Salesforce's core functionality can be used for other tracking and monitoring applications outside of the sales function. * 7 Dow Jones Stocks to Buy With Fortress-Like Balance Sheets For example, Salesforce has its Salesforce Cares program, specifically tailored to helping companies manage health and human resources during the Covid-19 crisis. As of April 30, more than 7,000 firms had signed up for Salesforce Cares. Clients include tele-health firms, medical clinics, apartment property managers and insurance benefits providers among others. This shows the wide range of applications that Salesforce can support beyond its traditional core capabilities. Salesforce's Valuation: Fairly PricedIf you look at Salesforce on a pure earnings basis, the stock usually tends to look expensive. Next year, for example, consensus estimates have Salesforce earning just shy of $4 per share. That would put the stock at more than 40x forward earnings. However, keep in mind that Salesforce tends to plow its earnings back into the business via marketing spend. In doing so, it gives up accounting profits now in return for far larger revenues and cash flows in the future.Thus, the most reliable way to judge Salesforce's stock is by its price-to-sales ratio. Coming out of the financial crisis, CRM stock sold for just 4x sales -- a veritable bargain. It shot up to 11x revenues in 2011-12, and became somewhat overpriced for a time.Since 2013, however, the stock has settled into a remarkably consistent range, with Salesforce almost always being worth between 7x and 9x sales. Any dips to 7x or below have been strong buying opportunities. Meanwhile, when it has gotten up above 9x -- such as late last year -- it was a good time to take some profits. The stock is now selling at 8.5x sales, which puts it within the normal range; a correction that knocked the stock down 10% from here would move it toward a compelling buying point. But the current price isn't half bad, either. The Verdict on CRM StockIn one sense, Salesforce's short-term trading fate will ride with the broader cloud and SaaS stocks. Salesforce is one of the big players in the sector, and its stock is approaching key resistance levels. Whether or not it surges to new heights next week will have as much to do with tech stock sentiment as anything else.That said, Salesforce could surprise some investors with this next earnings report. Sure, there's probably going to be a slowdown in growth from their existing customers. And margins may suffer in the short-run. Salesforce is run with long-term objectives in mind; CEO Marc Benioff promised not to lay off any significant number of workers during the acute phase of this crisis, for example, which is great for long-term loyalty but could have an effect on margins in the short-term.However, if you own Salesforce as a long-term investment, part of what you've signed up for is maximizing future value rather than shooting for immediate profits. So don't worry about this one earnings report too much. That said, it could come in with more positive news than you expect. That's especially true when you consider all that's going on with Salesforce's efforts in fostering more client relationships in telemedicine and other adjacent lines of business. Salesforce is one of the core blue chip companies within the cloud software universe. As such, CRM stock represents a decent value heading into earnings.Ian Bezek has written more than 1,000 articles for InvestorPlace.com and Seeking Alpha. He also worked as a Junior Analyst for Kerrisdale Capital, a $300 million New York City-based hedge fund. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek. At the time of this writing, he held no positions in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner * America's Richest ZIP Code Holds Shocking Secret * 1 Under-the-Radar 5G Stock to Buy Now * The 1 Stock All Retirees Must Own The post Salesforce Stock Is a Promising Buy Ahead of Earnings appeared first on InvestorPlace.
Investors are looking for signs that Salesforce can adapt and prosper in a challenging economic environment.
If you rebuild the workplace after COVID-19, will the workers ever come back? In Silicon Valley, the answer from many tech companies is that many won’t, and maybe that is a good thing.
Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) are two cloud computing stocks that have outperformed the broader market throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Adobe's stock advanced nearly 20% this year as its Creative Cloud services, marketing services, and analytics tools locked in mainstream and enterprise customers. Salesforce's stock rose nearly 10% as its market-leading customer relationship management (CRM) tools faced only limited disruptions from COVID-19.
Shares of Workday Inc. rose nearly 6% in the extended session Wednesday after the cloud-software company reported sales above Wall Street expectations and announced a partnership with Salesforce.com Inc. . Workday said it lost $158 million, or 68 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with a loss of $116 million, or 52 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, Workday earned 44 cents a share, compared with 43 cents a share a year ago. Revenue rose 23% to $1.02 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected an adjusted profit of 49 cents a share on sales of $1 billion. "The cloud is playing a critical role in today's climate, with organizations leaning on Workday to pivot," Chief Executive Aneel Bhusri said in a statement. Workday said that while it was "well positioned" to weather the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it was lowering its fiscal 2021 subscription revenue guidance to account for the near-term challenges with the pandemic. It said it expects fiscal 2021 subscription revenue in a range between $3.67 billion and $3.69 billion, and fiscal second-quarter subscription revenue between $913 million and $915 million. The partnership with Salesforce involves further integration of Workday and Salesforce's Work.com, a new suite of applications and resources to help business with their reopening, the company said. Shares of Workday had ended the regular trading day up 1.2%.
Salesforce's (CRM) first-quarter fiscal 2021 results are expected to reflect the negative impact of coronavirus. However, it benefits from consistent digital transformation, a trend that most likely continued in Q1.
(Bloomberg) -- Workday Inc. reported quarterly revenue that topped $1 billion for the first time, beating analyst estimates and continuing growth for the maker of human resources software despite the economic challenges of the pandemic. Shares rose more than 7% in extended trading.Revenue increased 23% to $1.02 billion in the fiscal first quarter, the Pleasanton, California-based company said Wednesday in a statement. On average, analysts expected $994 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. After some expenses, profit was 44 cents a share, compared with analyst projections of 47 cents.Workday expects subscription revenue for the fiscal year of $3.67 billion to $3.69 billion, down from as much as $3.77 billion. In the second quarter, subscription revenue will be as much as $915 million, the company said.Chief Executive Officer Aneel Bhusri has targeted a goal of $10 billion in annual revenue, from $3.6 billion the past fiscal year. The company continues to expand its human resources, accounting and planning software to offer the capabilities of established rivals Oracle Corp. and SAP SE, but delivered through the cloud. Before Workday reported results, some analysts were concerned that corporate customers aren’t interested in pursuing large software deals and complicated implementations during the Covid-19 pandemic.“The cloud is playing a critical role in today’s climate, with organizations leaning on Workday to pivot -- whether it’s helping employees learn virtually, closing books remotely, or scenario planning to determine what path to take,” Bhusri said in the statement.Workday also announced two partnerships Wednesday. One, with Microsoft Corp., will run Workday’s Adaptive Planning on the Azure cloud. Microsoft’s finance team will start using the product for its internal needs and both companies will collaborate on integrating their software products for mutual customers. The second partnership, with Salesforce.com Inc., aims to help organizations safely return to their offices in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Investing.com - Our senior markets analyst Jesse Cohen gives us his top five things to know in financial markets in the week ahead, including:
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