Is Salesforce Stock a Buy?
It's worth stating up front that just before COVID-19 took control of the world and sent global stock markets crashing, I thought shares of salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) were a great long-term buy even north of $170 per share. Hindsight is 20/20, and of course reiterating the call now (the stock trades for $140 per share as of this writing, down about 30% from all-time highs) would have been far better. I take solace in the fact that the software outfit's 2020 year-to-date return of negative 14% is at least beating the overall market's return -- as measured by the S&P 500 -- of negative 24%.
However, not much has changed for Salesforce's long-term prospects since my last write-up, which came right after the company's year-end report for fiscal 2020. While coronavirus is sure to have an adverse effect on business in the next year or so, the pandemic is likely to further accelerate digital transformation rather than slow it down. As one of two companies at the heart of the movement (the other being Adobe, which I am also going to add to my portfolio soon), I am reiterating my long-term buy thesis for Salesforce.
Salesforce started out as a maker of customer relationship management (CRM) software. It quickly gained notoriety because of co-founder and current CEO Marc Benioff's ardent championing of cloud computing -- services delivered remotely via an internet connection.
Source Fool.com
