CRM approaches its September 16 earnings report with a striking divergence between cautious options positioning and a rapidly deflating short base — two signals that are pulling in opposite directions as the stock trades at $247.72.
Options traders have turned measurably more defensive ahead of the print. The put/call ratio has climbed to 1.01, its highest level of the past year and well above the 20-day average of 0.95. The shift is notable in its timing: through most of August, the PCR ran in the low 0.82 range. It has moved steadily toward parity with calls since late August — suggesting that investors who were comfortable with upside exposure through the summer are now buying more downside protection into the release.
Short sellers tell a different story. Bears have been covering aggressively. Short interest has fallen by roughly a third over the past month, dropping from around 39 million shares in early August to 26.3 million, representing just 2.8% of the free float. The borrow market reflects the same lack of conviction: the cost to borrow is negligible at 0.34%, and availability is effectively unlimited — with over 480 million shares available to lend against just 26 million borrowed, there is no squeeze pressure anywhere in the lending pool. The retreat in short interest appears directly linked to what happened at the last print: Salesforce reported in late August and the stock jumped 22.5% on the day, extending to nearly 25% over the following week. That kind of move has a way of concentrating short-side minds.
The analyst community overwhelmingly stayed bullish after that result. A cluster of firms raised targets in the days immediately following the August print — JPMorgan moved to $265, Jefferies to $300, TD Cowen to $300, and Cantor Fitzgerald to $300. Needham, already at $400, simply reiterated. The consensus now sits at Buy, with 33 buy ratings against 15 holds and a mean target of $273. The bear case, as articulated in recent research, centres almost entirely on valuation: at roughly 5.4x EV/NTM recurring revenue, the stock is being asked to price in sustained AI-driven growth from its Anthropic partnership before that growth has fully materialised. Bulls counter that CRM's Customer 360 platform is genuinely benefiting from AI-driven enterprise spend, and that the company's track record of beating and raising makes the premium defensible. One notable holdout is Citigroup, which raised its target to $233 after the August result — still below the current price — while keeping a Neutral rating, a reminder that not everyone on the Street thinks the 25% post-earnings re-rating was fully deserved.
Peer context adds some nuance. Enterprise software names have been weak on the week: NOW fell nearly 9%, ADBE dropped 11.7%, ASAN lost 13%, and APPN slid nearly 15%. CRM itself is down 4.4% on the week, a relatively contained move that suggests the stock is holding up better than most of its peer group ahead of the print. With the stock up 25% over the past month — almost entirely a function of the August earnings gap — the September 16 report is less a test of whether Salesforce is growing and more a test of whether the AI-partnership narrative can sustain a valuation that most of the Street is now stretching to justify.
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