Salesforce (CRM) is scheduled to report results of its fourth fiscal quarter after the market close on Tuesday, March 1, with a conference call scheduled for 5:00 pm ET. What to watch for:

GUIDANCE: Along with its third-quarter earnings report, Salesforce forecast 2022 revenue of $26.39B-$26.4B. Consensus, which was $26.33B at the time, has since increased to $26.4B. Salesforce also guided to fiscal year 2022 adjusted earnings per share of $4.68-$4.69. Consensus for EPS, which was $4.42 at the time, has since risen to $4.68. The company also provided fourth-quarter adjusted EPS guidance of 72c-73c on revenue of $7.224B-$7.234B. Consensus for earnings, which was at 81c at the time, has dropped to 75c, and consensus for revenue, which was at $7.22B, has inched up to $7.24B.

CEO APPOINTMENT: Along with its earnings report, Salesforce announced that Bret Taylor had been promoted to Vice-Chair of the Board and Co-CEO of Salesforce. Taylor served as Salesforce's President and COO since 2019 and previously served as the company's President and CPO.

PARTNERSHIPS, FEATURES: In December, MuleSoft announced new universal API management capabilities to enable IT teams to securely create, manage and govern APIs. Additionally, in December, Salesforce announced a partnership with Vox Media to bring video of the Pivot podcast to its streaming service Salesforce+. The company also announced in December that IBM (IBM) and MuleSoft have partnered with plans to extend Anypoint Runtime Fabric on Red Hat OpenShift. The company’s also plan to deliver increased integrations and solutions around the IBM Z product family to support financial services and other mutual customers.

ANALYST VIEWS: On Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turrin lowered the firm's price target on Salesforce to $265 from $340 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. The analyst noted shares have underperformed recently due to investor concerns around pull-forward of front office demand, and are now 39% off of recent highs. Given that backdrop, he believes Q4 and full-year 2023 set up relatively well for shares given signs of still strong underlying demand, progress around the Slack integration, anecdotal evidence Mulesoft operations are improving, and room for margin leverage, which he thinks can help reinforce valuation support.

Meanwhile, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said his survey of Salesforce partners found that 54% of respondents expect a stabilization in growth in 2022, while 46% expect to see an acceleration. In addition, 88% of respondents expect their Salesforce practices to grow in 2022, said Thill, who thinks expectations are low for the company ahead of its Q4 report despite what he calls "a tough set up" heading into the quarterly report. The stock is down 35% since reporting fiscal Q3 due to the software selloff, investor fears around demand-pull forward and MuleSoft, and tougher comparisons, said Thill, who sees an attractive risk-reward and kept a Buy rating and $360 price target on Salesforce shares.

On Monday, Cowen analyst J. Derrick Wood lowered the firm's price target on Salesforce to $285 from $325 and kept an Outperform rating on the shares. The analyst previewed its upcoming results and said while his reads on Government and MULE are more mixed, he still expects a solid beat and raise and are encouraged that 91% of their partners see 2023 pipeline growth.

Additionally, BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman lowered the firm's price target on Salesforce to $240 from $335 amid compression in software multiples but kept an Outperform rating on the shares. The company can sustain double-digit growth, with upsell and new solution offerings contributing to growth, the analyst said.