Salesforce jumps 22% after a Q2 beat, Claudeforce, and a $2.6 billion Anthropic mark
The SaaS fear trade got a tape answer.
CNBC: Salesforce shares jumped 22% Thursday after a second-quarter beat and an expanded partnership with Anthropic. Second-best day ever, after August 2020, about 26%.
Marc Benioff and Dario Amodei unveiled Claudeforce, a Salesforce plug-in in Claude so salespeople can pull critical data through Claude.
The move helped lift Adobe, Palantir, ServiceNow, Autodesk, and Figma. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF climbed roughly 5%.
Benioff on Wednesday’s earnings call, via CNBC: “This is not the SaaSpocalypse… We’ve been hearing about this for last two quarters, these dire predictions about the end of software and how the models eat everything, but none of them have come true for us.”
Revenue $11.35 billion against $11.32 billion LSEG expected, up 11% from a year earlier. Adjusted EPS $5.90 against estimates of $3.27.
Net income $3.53 billion, or $4.29 a share, up 87% from $1.89 billion, or $1.96, a year ago.
Salesforce noted a $2.6 billion gain from its Anthropic stake. CNBC: Anthropic’s valuation has now grown to $965 billion ahead of its IPO.
I would leave the $965 billion on Salesforce’s mark.