The giant in the customer relationship management space, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), shares grew 4% in premarket trading on February 26 after Q4 FY26 earnings beat EPS expectations but disappointed on guidance. Reddit’s weekly sentiment score dropped to 35 (bearish) from a quarterly baseline of 53 (neutral). The company posted its strongest quarterly revenue ever, announced a $50 billion share repurchase program, and the market sold it off anyway.
Other critical takeaways include Non-GAAP EPS coming in at $3.81, beating a $3.05 estimate by 25%, and revenue of $11.2 billion grew 12% year-over-year, the fastest pace since early 2023. Full-year free cash flow hit $14.4 billion, up nearly 16%. What rattled investors was FY27 guidance of $45.8 to $46.2 billion, implying 10 to 11% growth, which trailed expectations and showed no meaningful acceleration.
The Reddit post Salesforce shares are down 4% in premarket on mixed guidance, and a $50 billion buyback commitment captured the post-earnings mood in r/stockmarket. One commenter summed up the sentiment: “Mixed guidance and $50 billion buyback commitment” — reflecting the broader retail read that the buyback signals a company prioritizing capital returns over growth acceleration.
Salesforce shares are down 4% in premarket on mixed guidance and $50 billion buyback commitment
by u/[author] in r/stockmarket
At least for now, retail investors are not reading the $50 billion buyback as a sign of confidence. The authorization represents roughly 26% of the current market cap, and Salesforce returned 87% of its free cash flow to shareholders through buybacks in FY26, up from 63% the prior year. Three reasons the skeptical read has traction:
- FY27 guidance of 10-11% implies only modest acceleration from FY26’s 9.6%, despite the Agentforce buildout
- Salesforce’s own CFO acknowledged that token prices “are going to start to go down over time and commoditize,” threatening margins as AI infrastructure costs fall
- Cash fell 17% year-over-year to $7.3 billion, while total liabilities climbed 27% to $53.2 billion
On the plus side, the bull case has real numbers to back it up as Agentforce ARR reached $800 million, up 169% year-over-year, with 29,000 deals closed, up 50% quarter-over-quarter. The Agentforce 360 Platform segment grew 38.4%. Management raised its FY30 revenue target to $60 billion and cited $72 billion in remaining performance obligations, up 14%. The honest question is whether consumption-based token pricing can replicate the predictability of seat-based subscriptions. Salesforce processed 19 trillion tokens in Q4, with costs likely not fully passed to customers.
Unsurprisingly, given its prominence in the SaaS space, analysts have not abandoned the stock, which trades at roughly 19x forward earnings, which is reasonable for a company of this quality but requires Agentforce to deliver. Q1 FY27 guidance calls for $11.03 to $11.08 billion in revenue. If growth reaccelerates in the back half of FY27 as promised, the buyback narrative shifts from defensive to disciplined.
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