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Marc Benioff, co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, attends the 50th World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2020.

Denis Balibouse | Reuters

There was a moment, during the pandemic-fueled growth days of 2020, when Salesforce surpassed Oracle by market cap. Marc Benioff had finally toppled his protege, Larry Ellison.

That moment is long gone.

Salesforce’s stock price has dropped 25% this year, the worst performance in large-cap tech and the second-steepest decline in the Dow, beating only UnitedHealth. Meanwhile, Oracle has jumped 34%, outperforming most of its peers and well outpacing the major indexes.

The two companies that were once about even by valuation are now separated by about $400 billion. Oracle is worth $630 billion, and Salesforce has dropped to $239 billion. Ellison now ranks second behind Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a $278 billion net worth. Benioff sits in 318th place at $10.4 billion.

Investors are eager to hear how Benioff plans to right the ship when Salesforce reports quarterly results after the close on Wednesday.

Sales growth has been mired in the single digits for four straight quarters as the company reckons with the challenges of saturation in its key market of customer relationship management software. That streak is expected to continue, with analysts estimating revenue growth of 8.7% to $10.1 billion, according to LSEG.

During the April period, about a quarter of Salesforce’s $9.3 billion in subscription and support revenue came from products related to customer service, its biggest category. The company charges for its Service Cloud offering based on the number of agents who use the software.

With the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, some analysts predict more inquiries will be handled through automation, posing a risk to Salesforce.

Benioff is well aware of the challenge. He said in June that AI is already handling about 30% to 50% of the company’s work. It’s a big reason why Salesforce reportedly slashed 1,000 jobs earlier this year.

When it comes to customers, Salesforce now sells Agentforce, an AI system for answering customer support requests. After becoming available in October, Agentforce was delivering $100 million in annualized revenue, Benioff told analysts on a conference call in May.

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“It’s not significant enough to move the needle on this business, given the scale,” said Michael Turrin, a Wells Fargo analyst who has a hold recommendation on Salesforce shares.

The hope is that customers end up paying more for Agentforce than for Service Cloud, Turrin said.

The big difference for Oracle is that it’s one of the early beneficiaries of the AI boom. Known primarily for its database software that sits inside big companies and government agencies, Oracle has notched cloud infrastructure commitments from OpenAI and Musk’s xAI.

Agentforce could be Salesforce’s window into AI business, if it gains traction.

“I think there’s been a lot of frustration with Salesforce’s share performance, so I think we’re at a point where investors are trying to figure out if there’s an opportunity for a bit of a rebound here,” Turrin said.

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In late 2022, activist investors started going after Salesforce, dissatisfied with Benioff’s high-cost acquisitions, the company’s underperforming stock and its expanding workforce. The activists began agitating for a more favorable mix of sales and profit, and Salesforce responded by expanding margins sooner than it had planned.

One of the main instigators, Starboard Value, is back for more. In the second quarter, the firm, which first bought Salesforce stock in 2022, boosted its holding by 47%, according to a filing. In October 2024, Starboard’s Jeff Smith complimented Salesforce’s profitability improvements but said he still believed “there’s a lot more to go.”

Vulcan Value Partners is a Salesforce shareholder that’s comfortable with the software company’s plans. After picking up a stake in 2020, Vulcan added 345,000 shares in the second quarter, increasing its total holdings to $300 million.

“The thing that we focus on is the value per share of the business,” said Stephen Simmons, a portfolio manager at the firm. “That is continuing to grow. There’s nothing we’re seeing that’s saying this company is going away anytime soon.”

Analysts expect earnings per share to increase to $2.78 for the latest quarter, up from $2.56 a year earlier, according to LSEG.

Vulcan sold its Oracle shares in 2020, missing out on a steep rally that followed. Simmons said he’d buy again if the stock becomes discounted.

“Funny how things go around and come around,” Simmons said. “Benioff starts Salesforce as a cloud-native enterprise company, and Larry’s over at Oracle trying to transition his on-prem customers to the cloud.”

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Nvidia deepens India footprint with $2 billion deep tech alliance to mentor AI startups

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Nvidia deepens India footprint with  billion deep tech alliance to mentor AI startups

Co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang spoke to journalists during a trip to Beijing in July.

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Nvidia will help train and mentor emerging deep tech startups in India as a founding member of a $2 billion investment alliance, deepening its presence in the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem.

The U.S. chipmaker has joined the India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA) — a group of private equity and venture capital investors pledging $2 billion for deep tech investments — as a founding member. Deep tech startups are an umbrella term for emerging companies in semiconductors, space, AI, biotech, robotics, and energy.

The world’s most valuable company will offer technical talks and training through its Nvidia Deep Learning Institute to emerging startups in India.

Nvidia wants to “provide guidance on AI systems, developer enablement, and responsible deployment, and to collaborate with policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs,” Vishal Dhupar, Nvidia’s managing director of South Asia, said.

Nvidia did not disclose any financial investment, timeline, or training targets, and did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

“Nvidia’s depth of expertise in AI systems, software, and ecosystem-building will benefit our network of investors and entrepreneurs,” said Sriram Viswanathan, founding executive council member of the IDTA.

He told CNBC that the pace of innovation is accelerating in India and there could be a “significant number of Indian deep tech companies of global repute” in the next five years.

The Indian government is also actively encouraging research and innovation in the deep tech space through major initiatives, including over 100 billion rupees ($1.1 billion USD) under its AI Mission and a separate 1 trillion rupees ($11.2 billion) Research, Development and Innovation Scheme Fund targeting deep tech companies.

On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country will host the AI Impact Summit in February next year.

The event is likely to see the participation of heads of state and top policymakers, along with business leaders such as Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of NVIDIA, and Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind.

Nvidia’s commitment in India coincides with rising global interest in India’s AI market, where OpenAI counts the country as its second-largest user base. U.S. rivals are also deepening ties: Google recently pledged $15 billion to build an AI hub in the southern city of Visakhapatnam.

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

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Wall Street is too fixated on the high valuations of tech and speculative stocks, Cramer says

Some stocks deserve a higher premium, says Jim Cramer

CNBC’s Jim Cramer suggested Wall Street is too fixated the on large valuations of certain tech and speculative stocks, chalking up Tuesday’s market-wide decline in part to Palantir‘s nearly 8% loss despite strong earnings results.

“The larger issue is that we’re at the moment where money managers, when asked if the market’s too expensive, immediately think of the high-flying speculative stocks or those in the high-growth artificial intelligence column, and so they warn you away from the entire asset class,” he said. “These guys don’t think of the other 334 stocks in the S&P 500 that sell for less than 23 times earnings — those aren’t outrageous.”

Declines in Palantir and other artificial intelligence companies helped bring stocks down on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 losing 1.17%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 0.53% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sinking 2.04%. Palantir managed to beat the estimates and offer solid guidance, citing growth in the artificial intelligence business. But investors worried broadly about the huge valuations of tech giants that have been leading the market to new heights.

Investors who saw Palantir as their “north star” were alarmed by its big pullback after a great quarter, according to Cramer. The fears triggered “a raft of selling” as these investors questioned the market as a whole, he continued.

Palantir can be a tough stock to classify, Cramer suggested, saying it straddles two different market segments — one centered around tech and artificial intelligence, and another focused on speculative stocks. He noted that the data-driven software company is very lucrative and fast growing, and it “defies easy description.” He listed off a number of its business arms — including its work as a defense contractor and as a consultant for companies looking to modernize and improve profitability.

To Cramer, it’s reasonable to consider that there’s nothing wrong with Palantir, and it just needs “to cool off in order to grow into its market capitalization.”

“Sure, there are indeed some stocks that are visibly overvalued, and when you pull them apart, many of these valuations can be justified, some can’t,” he said. “I think the Magnificent Seven can be justified on the pace of the growth that’s ahead of them. Same, ultimately, with Palantir.”

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Bitcoin retail investor at ‘max desperation,’ says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

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Bitcoin retail investor at 'max desperation,' says Bitwise CIO, but crypto winter not coming

'I think crypto market is close to a bottom': Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan

Bitcoin‘s fall below $100,000, its lowest level since June, has sparked fears that the worst is yet to come, another so-called crypto winter (a prolonged bear market in cryptocurrencies) that the market wrestles with every time digital currencies sell off hard in a short period of time.

But Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan says that while the retail investor is in “max desperation” mode, he sees that as a reason to bet that a bottoming in crypto prices may materialize sooner rather than later. With Wall Street institutional investor and financial advisor support for bitcoin, and growth in crypto ETFs, he is even willing to go out on a limb and say that amid the heavy selling a new record high for bitcoin before the end of the year isn’t unreasonable.

“It’s almost a tale of two markets,” he said on CNBC’s “Crypto World” on Tuesday. “Crypto retail is in max desperation. We’ve seen leverage blowouts. … the market for sort of crypto native retail is just more depressed than I’ve ever seen it,” he said.

But Hougan believes more crypto trading will continue to shift into an institutionally driven market, “and interestingly, that market is still bullish,” he said.

“When I go out and speak to institutions or financial advisors, they’re still excited to allocate to an asset class that if you pan back and look over the course of a year, is still delivering very strong returns. So my view of the market is we have to get through this retail flush out. We have to hit bottom from a sentiment perspective. I think we’re very close to that,” he added.

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Price of bitcoin and ether over the past year.

The boom in crypto exchange-traded fund launches, including iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is changing the investor composition, and while week-to-week flows into these ETFs have slowed since the second quarter of the year, “we continue to see strong inflows into bitcoin,” Hougan said.

He expects more support to materialize for crypto into the end of the year among financial advisors who will look past the current dip and see an “opportunity to show their clients that they understand where this market is going.”

Bitwise’s own Solana staking ETF (BSOL) brought in over $400 million in flows in its first week, he said, though it has sold off sharply in the recent crypto downturn, with a near 20% loss since its Oct. 28 debut.

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This chart is showing BSOL 5 days

Last week, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor told CNBC he thinks bitcoin could reach $150,000 by the end of the year, one among several recent bullish calls on crypto that for now at least look ill-timed. But Hougan said he doesn’t think it’s an outlandish call even as bitcoin hovers near a six-month low.

“I think bitcoin could easily end the year at new all-time highs,” Hougan said. “So that means getting north of about $125,000 up to $130,000. Whether we’ll get all the way to $150,000, we’ll have to see.”

“I do think the sellers are nearing exhaustion and the buyers are still relatively hungry. And when those two things sort of cross paths, again, I think we could end the year close to or at new all-time highs. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get to Saylor’s target as well,” he said.

Institutional investors, whom Hougan described as “more maybe even keeled about what’s going on at a fundamental level in crypto” will start to drive the market forward. “But we do have to finish this washout of retail sentiment … I think we’re closer to the end of that than the beginning, but … there always could be a little bit more downside.”

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