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Buy Salesforce (CRM) Stock Before Q1 Earnings for Coronavirus Immunity?

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Salesforce (CRM - Free Report) stock popped again Tuesday, as part of a much larger run since mid-March. This might mean that Wall Street is expecting big things from the cloud-based business software giant that is set to report its first quarter fiscal 2021 financial results after the closing bell on Thursday, May 28.

Shares of Salesforce have crushed the broader tech industry since mid-March, up 43% against our Zacks Tech industry’s 31% jump. Despite the climb, CRM stock still rests roughly 10% off its highs, which could give it more room to run.

Meanwhile, Salesforce is trading not too far off its 52-week median in terms of forward 12-month sales estimates at 7.1X. This also marks a discount against its one-year high of 9.8X.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outlook

Salesforce last summer completed its largest ever deal to buy Tableau, in order to grow its data analytics business. Overall, Salesforce looks poised to expand for years to come as businesses big and small transform their operations to better compete in a quickly changing world dominated by tech.

CRM topped Q4 earnings and sales estimates. And CEO Marc Benioff said in the third quarter of last year that Salesforce was “on track to double our revenue in five years.”

Looking ahead, our Zacks estimates call for CRM’s adjusted Q1 earnings to sink 26% from the year-ago period to $0.69 a share. Meanwhile, its revenue is expected to jump 30% to reach $4.85 billion.

Overall, Salesforce’s full-year fiscal 2021 revenue is projected to climb 22%, which would mark a slowdown against FY20’s 29% & FY19’s 26%.

Bottom Line

Salesforce is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) that sports “B” grades for Growth and Momentum in our Style Scores system. CRM has also consistently topped our quarterly earnings estimates. The stock could fall in the near term, even if it posts strong results or provides solid guidance since it has already climbed over 40% in two months.

That said, despite broader coronavirus uncertainty, tech stocks from giants like Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Apple (AAPL - Free Report) to Zoom (ZM - Free Report) have proven their resilience to the coronavirus. And we are likely to remain in ‘don’t fight the Fed’ mode, as economies around the world slowly reopen.

Therefore, Salesforce could continue to climb in the near-term as part of big-tech’s coronavirus immunity, and longer-term investors might also want to consider CRM as a play on the future of business.

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