JMP Analyst: Buy Dip In Salesforce, Stock Worth $90

• Shares of salesforce.com, inc. CRM have appreciated 10.41 percent over the past year, rising almost to their 52-week high on December 4 at $82.14.
• JMP Securities’ Patrick Walravens has maintained a Market Outperform rating and price target of $90 on the company.
• Walravens believes that the stock offers an attractive “capital appreciation” opportunity, given the company’s fundamentals, “tone of business” and the pullback in the stock year to date.

Analyst Patrick Walravens mentioned that there were several reasons why investors should buy salesforce.com, including JMP’s due diligence with industry sources suggesting that the company “had a strong F4Q16, which should set the company up well for FY17.”

Walravens also believes that Keith Block’s promotion to Chief Operating Officer two days after the end of the quarter was a “positive indicator of business momentum.”

In addition, Walravens stated that he was not concerned regarding the pending change in the role of Tony Fernicola, President of Enterprise, since Mr. Fernicola’s change was “100 percent planned” and he had already helped deliver a strong F4Q16.

According to the JMP report, the “Special Event in San Francisco yesterday laid out some new products that should open a number of incremental market areas for salesforce.com, including Field Service Management, a ~$1.3B market, and Configure, Price, Quote, a ~$2.8B market.”

The billing growth estimate for F4Q16 has been raised from 21 percent to 22 percent, while the non-GAAP estimate has been raised from $0.19 to $0.20 on revenue growth of 24 percent.