** Shares of Salesforce CRM.N were up 3.4% on Wed, gaining along with other software company shares, with Salesforce seen reporting higher rev and EPS in its qtrly results due after the closing bell
** Shares of U.S. software companies overall were higher on Wed following recent sharp selling tied to concerns that AI will upend traditional business models
** CRM, a business software provider, is expected to report Q4 rev of $11.18 bln vs $9.99 bln in the yr-ago period, and adj EPS of $3.04, vs $2.78 a yr ago, per LSEG
** In Dec, the co raised its annual forecasts, citing strong enterprise demand and adoption of its Agentforce AI platform
** CRM options imply a 8.1% swing for the shares, in either direction by Friday, per Trade Alert data; the stock has logged an avg move of 6.3% the day after results, over the last eight qtrs
** Including the session move, CRM's stock is down about 28% YTD, compared with a roughly 3% gain in the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI in that period
** The median 12-mo PT on CRM is $300, per LSEG; the stock was last at $191.65
** Analyst recommendations on CRM include 42 "buy" or "strong buy" ratings, 11 "hold" ratings and one "strong sell" rating
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed)
((caroline.valetkevitch@thomsonreuters.com))
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