Salesforce Stock Surges on Strong Earnings, Driven by Anthropic Investment Gains
On Thursday, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) shares surged nearly 23%, marking one of the company's best days ever. This came after reporting fiscal second-quarter results for 2027 that showed non-GAAP earnings per share rising to $5.90 from $2.91 a year ago — an increase of over 103%. A significant portion of this gain, however, was attributed not directly to Salesforce's core operations but rather to strategic investments. The largest contributor to the profit boost came from gains on its investment in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence model developer. The $2.7 billion unrealized gain tied to a stake valued at about $5.1 billion accounted for more than 40% of Salesforce's reported earnings and nearly half of GAAP earnings per share. This surge was partly due to Anthropic’s valuation increase in May when it raised funding that valued the company at $965 billion. Beyond investment gains, Salesforce saw solid performance from its core business with a 16% growth in adjusted EPS excluding investment contributions and revenue rising by 11%. Subscription and support revenue grew by 12%, while operating cash flow increased significantly. The AI-focused products like Agentforce and Data 360 also showed strong momentum.
Topics: ai investments anthropic salesforce stock performance