Why Salesforce Stock Slumped Today
Key Points
He maintained his neutral recommendation, which didn't help sentiment on the stock.
On top of that, investor fears of AI disruption persist.
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For the most part, stocks did well on a generally bullish Thursday for the market, but we can't say the same for Salesforce's (NYSE: CRM) equity. The customer relationship management (CRM) specialist took a more than 2% hit to its price after an analyst lowered his fair value assessment.
An analyst gets out the scissors
That morning, UBS pundit Karl Keirstead reduced his Salesforce price target from $200 per share to $185. In doing so, he maintained his neutral recommendation.
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It wasn't immediately apparent why Keirstead made his reduction, but it comes amid choppiness in legacy software stocks. One major theme with investors so far this year has been the fear of artificial intelligence (AI) disruption.
Advanced AI models, so the theory goes, could be trained to perform the functions of classic software solutions such as Salesforce's long-standing CRM platform and its many modules. While there have lately been some signs of life in the legacy software space as investors hunt for beaten-down bargains, that dampened sentiment seems to be lingering to a degree.
Undeservedly punished
I believe that reputation and reality are at odds in Salesforce's case. Far from being a stuck-in-the-past business that refuses to embrace the latest technology, the company has actually been quite tech-forward with AI. In fact, toward the end of last year, it rolled out its own cutting-edge, dedicated agentic AI solution, Agentforce.
With that, the company posted a beat-and-raise third quarter for its final earnings release of 2025. Better, it followed the feat with a fourth quarter that topped analyst estimates and featured double-digit growth on both the top and bottom lines.
This doesn't feel to me like a sluggish has-been company that can't keep up with the times. More and more these days, it's looking like an underappreciated -- even ignored -- player in its segment that's still powerful and competitive. Salesforce stock feels like a bargain to me.
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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
