PREVIEW: Salesforce dips with earnings due after the bell

Salesforce CRM.N shares off 0.4% at $276.09 ahead of Q1 results due after the closing bell on Wednesday

The cloud-software and customer relationship management technology company is expected to report adj EPS of $2.54 on revenue of $9.75 bln, per LSEG, data, vs yr-ago earnings of $2.44 per share and $9.13 bln in revenue

Salesforce has met or beaten EPS expectations in seven of the past eight quarters, with most recent miss in Q3 2024

On Tuesday, CRM said it would acquire Informatica INFA.N for about $8 billion, betting on the data management platform to sharpen its competitive edge in the booming artificial intelligence market

Of the 55 analysts that cover Salesforce Inc, the breakdown of recommendations is 43 "strong buy" or "buy," 10 "hold" and 2 "sell" or "strong sell" ratings

Median analyst price target of $375 is unchanged from a month ago and down from $400 on Feb. 28

CRM shares down ~17% YTD vs decline of 0.7% for Dow Industrials .DJI

CRM options imply a 7.1% swing for the shares, in either direction on Thursday, per ORATS data; the stock has logged an avg move of 7.4% the day after results, over the last eight qtrs