1-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: salesforce.com?

Updated

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, customer relations management software specialist salesforce.com (NYS: CRM) has received the dreaded one-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Salesforce's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Salesforcefacts

Headquarters (founded)

San Francisco (1999)

Market Cap

$20.2 billion

Industry

Application software

Trailing-12-Month Revenue

$2.6 billion

Management

Co-Founder/Chairman/CEO Marc Benioff
CFO Graham Smith

Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)

2.6%

Cash/Debt

$1.1 billion / $558.3 million

Competitors

Microsoft
Oracle
SAP


Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 49% of the 1,832 members who have rated Salesforce believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Just last week, one of those Fools, reeshau, wrote that the Salesforce bear case all boiled down to price:

I'm not saying the product is bad or that I think the company will fail. But pick your valuation multiple, and this company is living back in 1999, not 2012. Start with the fact that they have a GAAP loss. That means we're dealing with non-GAAP numbers, picked by management. But even with those, we are talking about an [83 forward P/E], 31 times free cash flow, and a PEG of 3.5. Yikes! I don't know when it will fall, but the valuation has to come back down to earth sometime.

If you want market-topping returns, you need to protect your portfolio from any undue risk. Luckily, we've found a growth play we are incredibly excited about -- excited enough to dub it "The Only Stock You Need to Profit from the NEW Technology Revolution." We have compiled a special free report for investors to uncover this stock today. The report is 100% free, but it won't be here forever, so click here to access it now.

Want to see how well (or not so well) the stocks in this series are performing? Follow the newTrackPoisedToCAPS account.

The article 1-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: salesforce.com? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Salesforce, Microsoft, and Oracle. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Salesforce and Microsoft, as well as creating a synthetic covered call position in Microsoft. A separate Motley Fool newsletter service has recommended shorting Salesforce. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

Copyright © 1995 - 2012 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Advertisement