Will Salesforce Beat and Raise? The Eternal Question.

This Wednesday, Aug. 20, Salesforce.com (CRM), which vends a customer relations management tool as a Web-based application, is expected to report financial results for the July-ending second quarter, after the bell. Two analysts take divergent approaches in their outlook for Salesforce in reports this morning.

Wedbush Morgan’s Ariel Sokol’s note is a model of the kind of balancing act you do if you can’t stand Salesforce’s high P/E (185x based on this year’s projected earnings), but you kind-of want to own the stock. Explaining why investors shouldn’t buy the stock now, Sokol writes, “Chatter that Salesforce’s Q2 closed weaker than expected could continue to be a headwind until the results are released, although … we would be surprised if Q2 results came in below expectations.”

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