Guggenheim Upgrades Salesforce to Buy, Says AI Threat Won’t Kill the CRM Giant — Stock Jumps 2%+ After Hours

After a week of pressure, Salesforce (CRM) caught a bullish signal from Wall Street. Guggenheim Securities upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral on July 1, arguing that while AI competition is real, Salesforce’s core business remains solid. The stock rose in after-hours trading on July 7 on the news and broader market sentiment.

As of 8:30 PM ET on July 7 (8:30 AM Beijing time on July 8), Salesforce (CRM) traded at $169.52 in after-hours, up 2.34% (+$3.87) from the prior close of $165.65. During the regular session, the stock opened at $169.22, hit a high of $172.38, and a low of $167.68.^[CNN]

Guggenheim: AI Pressure Persists, But Won’t Kill Salesforce

Guggenheim Securities drove the upgrade. In a July 1 report, analysts raised Salesforce to Buy from Neutral.^[TipRanks] Their core view: AI competition will keep pressuring Salesforce, but it won’t "kill" the company. That call provided a key support for a stock that had been under pressure from AI-threat narratives.

Notably, Guggenheim’s move came on July 1, the same day other major Wall Street firms issued bullish calls on SpaceX.^[CNBC] That suggests a broader re-rating of tech and AI-linked names in early July.

Stock Slammed, But Wall Street Sees Long-Term Upside

Just before the upgrade, Salesforce’s stock was slammed in the week of July 4.^[TipRanks] The sell-off was fueled by fears that AI could disrupt traditional CRM software. On July 6, The Information reported that some small businesses are using Anthropic’s Claude AI model to replace Salesforce, adding to investor anxiety.^[TipRanks]

Yet despite the sell-off, multiple Wall Street firms remain bullish on Salesforce’s long-term prospects, seeing big upside.^[TipRanks] On July 1, several analysts also named Salesforce one of the AI stocks expected to rebound in 2026.^[TipRanks] That tension — short-term pain, long-term optimism — captures the market’s mixed view on Salesforce’s AI-era positioning.

Technical & Fundamental: Near 52-Week Low

Technically, Salesforce shares are trading near the bottom of their 52-week range and below their 200-day simple moving average (SMA).^[CNN] That’s often a sign of relative weakness or oversold conditions.

Fundamentally, Salesforce is a San Francisco-based company founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff and Parker Harris. It develops and sells cloud-based enterprise CRM software, covering sales automation, customer service, marketing automation, and digital commerce.^[CNN] Its current market cap is ~$135.67 billion, placing it in large-cap territory.^[CNN] The market is watching for the next earnings report to see how the business holds up in an AI-competitive landscape.

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