What Happened?
Shares of CRM software giant Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) jumped 3.9% in the afternoon session after solid economic data, including a beat on consumer confidence boosted sentiment.
The positive reports fueled a "Turnaround Tuesday" relief rally across the market, with the technology sector among the leaders. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose to 91.2 in February, indicating a more optimistic outlook from consumers about income and business conditions. Also, a recent announcement from Anthropic regarding new collaborative tools for its Claude AI agent software helped calm investor nerves. The company's move to expand its AI tools into sectors like human resources and investment banking signals a potential for partnership rather than replacement. This shift in sentiment was reflected in the market, with the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF surging 2.4% as investors bought back into beaten-down software stocks.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $184.98, up 3.8% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Salesforce’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 9 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 7 days ago when the stock dropped 3% on the news that investor fears over artificial intelligence disrupting the software industry sparked a broad sell-off.
The anxiety stemmed from the rapid adoption of new 'agentic AI' tools, which some investors believed could dismantle traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business models. This 'AI Panic' led to indiscriminate selling across the sector. The market move reflected growing concerns about the downside of the AI boom for established software companies.
Salesforce is down 27.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $184.98 per share, it is trading 40% below its 52-week high of $308.32 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Salesforce’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $769.23.
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