Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM)
Salesforce.com Earnings & Technicals
On Wednesday afternoon after the close, salesforce.com (CRM) announced first quarter earnings that crushed analyst estimates and sent shares skyrocketing in the post market session. The company announced adjusted earnings of 24 cents per share on $1.78 billion in revenues while analyst were looking for 23 cents per share on $1.89 billion in revenues. This is also compared to the same period last year where the company posted $1.41 billion in revenues. CRM expects second quarter EPS in the range of 24 to 25 cents with full year guidance at $1 to $1.02. Analysts currently have an average price target of $90.70.
Looking over the chart you will see that shares caught a strong bid in the post market session and haven’t slowed down a bit with highs hitting $83.62 after closing the day at $77.87, a 6.9% jump in price. If shares can hold above $82.90 then they will be at all time highs and the previous high should act as some support followed by $82 and $80 while resistance will come in at whole dollars as we trade in new territory. Expect shares to be volatile with above average volume and range as gap ups into new highs like this can be pretty whippy. Typically gap ups into all time highs come down as profit takers and short sellers take advantage of the move but we’ll have to see how these support levels hold up before taking a position.
Executive Comments
“We’re thrilled that first quarter revenue growth accelerated to 28% year-over-year in constant currency,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce. “Given the strong response to our Customer Success Platform, we are raising our fiscal 2017 revenue guidance by $80 million to reach $8.2 billion at the high end of the range.”
“Operating cash flow grew 43% in the first quarter from a year ago, surpassing the $1 billion quarterly milestone for the first time in our company’s history,” said Mark Hawkins, CFO, Salesforce. “We also expanded our non-GAAP operating margin by 283 basis points, which is our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement.”
“Our first quarter was an extremely strong start to our fiscal year, with outstanding execution across the board,” said Keith Block, vice chairman, president and COO, Salesforce. “We continued to drive larger and more strategic transactions in the first quarter, including yet another 9-figure transaction. No other enterprise software company is building strategic relationships of this size and scale—and certainly not at this pace.”
CRM Profile
Salesforce.com, inc. provides enterprise cloud computing applications. It provides a comprehensive customer and collaboration relationship management service to businesses of all sizes and industries and also provides a technology platform for customers and developers to build and run applications. The company has designed and developed its applications to be easy-to-use and intuitive solutions that can be deployed, customized and integrated with other software applications. salesforce.com offers its services on a subscription basis, primarily through its direct sales efforts and indirectly through partners. The company was founded by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez in February 1999 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.