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Salesforce Q2 Earnings Report Scheduled for August 26, Analysts Raise Price Target to $250

Salesforceis scheduled to report results of its second fiscal quarter after the market close on Wednesday, August 26, with a conference call scheduled for 5:00 pm ET. What to watch for:GUIDANCE:Along with its first quarter earnings report, Salesforce raised its FY27 adjusted earnings per share view to $14.06-$14.12 from $13.11-$13.19 and narrowed its revenue view to $45.9B-$46.2B from $45.8B-$46.2B, which compared to analyst estimates of $13.23 and $46.11B, respectively, at the time of the report. Consensus for EPS has since risen to $14.14, while estimates for revenue have remained at $46.11B. The company also provided Q2 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.25-$3.27 on revenue of $11.27B-$11.35B. Consensus for earnings, which was at $3.25 at the time, has increased to $3.27, and consensus for revenue, which was at $11.36B, has dropped to $11.32B.PARTNERSHIPS, FEATURES:In May, Merck Animal Healthannounced it selected Agentforce Life Sciences for customer engagement. Salesforce also announced in May a $72M Enterprise License Agreement with the Department of the Air Force. Additionally in May, the company's Informatica announced it had deepened its partnerships with Google Cloud, Microsoftand Amazon Web Services. Salesforce and CVS Healthalso expanded their collaboration in May to streamline call centers.In June, the company announced a $2B investment in France through 2030. Salesforce also announced a partnership to become an Official Tournament Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026 in North America and Europe and the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 in North America and Brazil. Additionally in June, the company announced a $1B investment in Italy over the next five years. Salesforce also announced an expanded partnership with Databricks in June to help organizations securely connect enterprise data with customer relationships, permissions, approvals, and workflows. Meanwhile, DocuSignannounced a new app for Slackbot during the month. In July, Salesforce announced plans to invest $1B in Switzerland over the next five years. The company also announced that Missionforce was adopted by the U.S. Air Force for fleet operations. Additionally, Salesforce announced a $1.6B Agentic Enterprise License Agreement with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in July.ACQUISITIONS:In June, Salesforce announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Contentful, a composable content platform trusted by over 4,800 of the world's leading brands to deliver personalized digital experiences at scale. The company said, "The acquisition will enhance Salesforce's Headless 360 with a native, enterprise-grade content layer that connects customer data with engaging content experiences across Salesforce's leading applications. By leveraging Data 360, Agentforce, and Contentful's composable APIs, global enterprises can seamlessly deliver personalized, AI- assembled experiences at scale across every channel...Following the close of the transaction, Contentful will be integrated natively across Customer 360 while preserving the composability that developers and digital teams expect from a modern headless platform."The company also announced in June it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire m3ter, a metering and rating platform purpose-built for consumption-based monetization. The company said, "The acquisition will bring high-volume mediation, metering and rating capabilities natively to Agentforce Revenue Management, enabling enterprises to launch, track, scale, and bill with the flexible usage and outcome-based pricing models needed for the AI era."Additionally in June, Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fin, formerly Intercom. Under the terms of the agreement, Salesforce will acquire Fin for approximately $3.6B, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. Fin's core offering, its AI Agent, resolves complex customer queries end-to-end, across every channel, including live chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone, and Slack. The company said, "The AI Agent is powered by the company's proprietary AI model, Apex, that is purpose-built for customer support and has demonstrated industry-leading resolution rates that outperform top commercially available frontier models. Building on the strength of Agentforce, which reached $1.2B in ARR in Q1 FY27, up 205% year-over- year, Fin's packaged offerings and proprietary models will complement Agentforce's deeply customizable platform with additional fast-to-value deployment options for service organizations. Upon close, Salesforce and Fin will give customers more ways to deploy AI agents across their customer service operations, with fast time-to-value options especially well-suited for SMB and some commercial organizations that need to launch quickly, integrate with existing systems, and deliver measurable outcomes."ANALYST VIEWS:BMO Capital raised the firm's price target on Salesforce to $230 from $215 and kept an Outperform rating on the shares as part of a broader research note previewing Q2 results in Software. Slack appears to be growing in importance as a conversational interface sitting above enterprise systems and a front-end interface layered on Salesforce workflows and enterprise data, and the management team increasingly positions Slack as the primary interface for the agentic workflow where employees, AI agents, and enterprise applications interact within a single workflow, the analyst said.Citi raised the firm's price target on Salesforce to $204 from $187 and kept a Neutral rating on the shares ahead of the Q2 earnings report. Citi's partner fieldwork remained mix on Salesforce but improved modestly from Q1, the analyst said. The firm upped its Q2 sales estimates to match consensus on its better channel checks. Meanwhile, JPMorgan resumed coverage of Salesforce with an Overweight rating and $250 price target. The firm sees the company's core business accelerating in 2H27. Concerns regarding disruption to Salesforce's position with enterprises from adoption of frontier AI models and competitive dynamics should be limited to a small portion of the business, the analyst said.

Canada Raises Tariffs on U.S. Steel and Aluminum to 50%

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Donald Trump with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.RETALIATORY TARIFFS:Canada is matching Trump's weekend tariff escalation with a sweeping package of counter tariffs that directly targets U.S. steel, aluminum and downstream manufacturing. Prime Minister Mark Carney will double Canada's existing counter-tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50%, while adding new 50% duties on U.S. furniture, clothing, electronics, smartphones, and gaming consoles. Overall, the retaliatory levies cover roughly $20B in annual imports. The measures take effect on September 8 and represent a sharp reversal in Carney's earlier conciliatory stance after trade talks between Canada and U.S. collapsed on Friday. Publicly traded companies in the space include ArcelorMittal, Cleveland-Cliffs, Nucor, Steel Dynamicsand U.S. Steel. Publicly traded companies in the aluminum space include Alcoa, Kaiser Aluminum, Rio Tinto, Century Aluminum, and Constellium.DEPUTY ROLES:The Department of Health and Human Services is planning to create two new deputy commissioner roles at the Food and Drug Administration, one of which would focus on technology and the intersection of health and artificial intelligence, CNBC's Annika Kim Constantino. The other new position is for a deputy commissioner for drugs, according to two sources familiar with the plan. Publicly-traded companies operating in the space include Pfizer, Merck, Bristol Myers, Eli Lilly, AbbVie, Amgen, Medtronic, Abbott, Boston Scientific, Stryker, Intuitive Surgical, GE HealthCare, Teladoc, and Oracle.U.S.-IRAN:In a post on Truth Social, President Trump stated, "The failing Islamic Republic of Iran is not paying large segments of their military, while at the same time killing protesters, even when they are not protesting, at levels not seen before. It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and must be stopped, NOW."