The Street is Finally Going Bullish on Salesforce and I Keep Buying

The Street is Finally Going Bullish on Salesforce and I Keep Buying

Alex Sirois

Wed, September 23, 2026 at 5:45 PM GMT+3 5 min read

• CRM +2.16%
• MSFT +0.14%

Quick Read

• Salesforce's Agentforce ARR hit $1.5B, combined with Data Cloud 360 surging 210% YoY, while CRM trades at just a 14x forward P/E with a 7.5% free cash flow yield.

• Microsoft owns the reflexive AI trade, but CRM's $50B buyback and shrinking share count from 962M to 821M make it the better destination for new capital.

• Liabilities nearly doubled funding the buyback, but interest coverage of 27.5x and net debt/EBITDA of 0.78 keep the balance sheet risk manageable.

• Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and Salesforce didn't make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat CRM. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

I keep buying Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) because the market spent most of this year arguing about whether AI would kill it, and management kept quietly stacking evidence that AI is doing the opposite. Every dip this year, I added. Now the sell-side is finally catching up, and I am still not done.

Why My Money Keeps Landing Here

The pull is simple. Salesforce owns the system of record where the enterprise actually lives, and the AI layer everyone was afraid would replace it is instead pouring recurring revenue back into it. Agentforce ARR hit $1.5 billion, and combined Agentforce and Data 360 ARR reached nearly $3.90 billion, up over 210% year-over-year. Marc Benioff put it flatly on the Q2 call: "AI isn't replacing Salesforce. It's unlocking more value across all four layers of our platform." That is the thesis in one sentence, and the customer proof points back it. Xero rolled Agentforce to 100% of customers with a 62% deflection rate across more than 200,000 interactions. Uber for Business pointed Agentforce at its lead pile and saw 60% more leads converting within two weeks.

Free Report, Just Released

Why Didn't CRM Make The Top 10 List?

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

And CRM didn't make the cut!

The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.

Enter Your Email and See the Ten →

Three Receipts I Keep Rereading

First, the cash machine. FY26 free cash flow was $14.402 billion, up 15.83% year-over-year, and Q2 free cash flow of $1.098 billion was up 81.49% year-over-year. Against that, free cash flow yield sits at 7.50% and price-to-free-cash-flow at 13.33. That is a rounding error of a multiple for a business growing subscription revenue 12% year-over-year with gross margins of 77.68%.

Second, the buyback is doing real work. Diluted share count fell to 821 million from 962 million a year ago thanks to a $25 billion ASR, with a new $50 billion repurchase authorization behind it. The quarterly dividend of $0.44 was raised 5.8% year-over-year. The yield is still modest, and it is growing on a shrinking share count.

Third, the visibility. Current RPO of $33.5 billion, up 14% year-over-year, is future revenue already signed. Management raised full-year FY27 revenue guidance to $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion and reaffirmed the FY30 target of $63 billion. Q2 also marked the sixth consecutive quarter of beating EPS expectations, with non-GAAP EPS of $5.90 versus $3.27 consensus.

Why Not the Obvious Alternative

The reflex AI trade in enterprise software is Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and I own it too. But CRM is where I keep adding, because CRM's forward P/E of 14 and 7.50% free cash flow yield are simply not what Microsoft offers at its current valuation. I am paying a low-teens multiple for double-digit subscription growth and a $50 billion buyback. That math wins my next dollar.

Risk I Refuse to Wave Off

Balance-sheet leverage jumped. Total liabilities rose 96.56% year-over-year to fund the ASR, and shareholders' equity declined 37.42%. That is real. What keeps me steady is interest coverage of 27.5x and net debt/EBITDA of 0.78. This company can service the debt with cash flow it prints in a single quarter.

Conviction From Here

The Street is warming up now, with an analyst target price of $281.89 against a current price of $233.28 and 40 buy or strong-buy ratings against just 2 strong sells. I was buying when shares were down 11.32% year-to-date. I will keep buying while the cash flow keeps compounding and the shares keep disappearing.

Got $1,000? Before You Buy CRM, Read This

If you have cash sitting in your account right now, give this two minutes. After more than two decades of helping investors beat the market, our top analysts at 24/7 Wall St. put together a definitive report on the Top 10 Stocks To Buy Today. And CRM wasn't one of them.

They combed the entire market. It's not 10 ideas, not 10 stocks everyone is talking about, it's what their research points to as the 10 best stocks to buy right now, and it's free. Read more here and see which stocks made the list -->>

Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.