Investment Advisor Pulls Plug on Software Giant, Recent Filing Shows
Key Points
Sold 10,774 shares of Salesforce, with a transaction value of $2.94 million
No remaining Salesforce shares held after the trade (post-trade value: $0)
The position previously accounted for 1.2% of the fund’s assets under management
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On October 17, 2025, Shaker Investments disclosed it sold out of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), liquidating 10,774 shares for an estimated $2.94 million.
What Happened
According to its SEC filing dated October 17, 2025, Shaker Investments sold all 10,774 shares of Salesforce during the third quarter. The transaction, valued at $2.94 million, resulted in the fund holding zero shares of Salesforce at the end of the reporting period.
What Else to Know
The fund sold out of Salesforce, which previously represented 1.2% of its reportable assets under management; post-trade stake is 0%.
Top holdings after the filing:
- NYSE:AX: $33.84 million (13.5% of AUM)
- NASDAQ:AVGO: $12.30 million (4.9% of AUM)
- NASDAQ:NVDA: $12,301,219 (4.9% of AUM)
- NASDAQ:MSFT: $8,486,093 (3.4% of AUM)
- NASDAQ:GOOGL: $8,297,003 (3.3% of AUM)
As of October 16, 2025, shares of Salesforce were priced at $246.00, down 15.4% over the past year; shares have underperformed the S&P 500 by 28.2 percentage points over the same period.
Company Overview
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue (TTM) | $39.50 billion |
| Net income (TTM) | $6.66 billion |
| Dividend yield | 0.68% |
| Price (as of market close October 16, 2025) | $246.00 |
Company Snapshot
Salesforce is a global leader in cloud-based customer relationship management software, delivering scalable solutions for sales, service, marketing, analytics, and integration. The company offers the Customer 360 platform, which includes CRM solutions, sales and service automation, analytics (Tableau), integration (MuleSoft), collaboration (Slack), and professional services.
Salesforce serves customers in financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, and other industries by providing technology to unify customer engagement and data. It provides cloud-based software subscriptions and related professional services to enterprise and mid-market clients globally.
Foolish Take
By selling out of its entire stake of around $2.9 million worth of Salesforce stock, Shaker Investments is dumping a company whose stock has been a laggard for quite some time now.
Indeed, over the last five years, shares of Salesforce have logged a total return of (4%). That is unimpressive, to say the least. Consider that over the same period of time, the S&P 500 has generated a total return of 110%, equating to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 16%. Salesforce, by comparison, has a CAGR of (0.7%).
In other words, Salesforce stock has been a dud of late. And, what's worse, there are growing concerns that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) could present a new challenge for software companies like Salesforce. In fact, some analysts have even playfully quipped that "AI eats software", a reference to the trend that AI-powered solutions are rapidly replacing off-the-shelf software in many organizations.
Granted, Salesforce continues to grow its overall revenue and net income - demonstrating that its fundamentals remain solid. However, for retail investors, the question remains: Will Salesforce measure up to its AI-powered competitors? As this recent sale shows, institutions are skeptical.
Glossary
Exited position: When an investor sells all shares of a particular holding, fully closing out their investment.
Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed by a fund or investment firm.
Fund: An investment vehicle pooling money from multiple investors to buy securities according to a stated strategy.
Stake: The proportion of ownership or investment a fund holds in a particular company.
Reporting period: The specific time frame covered by a financial report or regulatory filing.
Customer 360 platform: Salesforce's integrated suite of tools for managing sales, service, marketing, analytics, and collaboration.
CRM solutions: Software tools designed to help businesses manage customer relationships and interactions.
Sales and service automation: Technology that streamlines sales processes and customer service tasks to increase efficiency.
Analytics (Tableau): Data analysis and visualization tools provided by Tableau, a Salesforce-owned company.
Integration (MuleSoft): Software that connects different applications and data sources, provided by MuleSoft, part of Salesforce.
Collaboration (Slack): Messaging and teamwork software, owned by Salesforce, for business communication and project management.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.
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Jake Lerch has positions in Alphabet and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Axos Financial, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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