BOX (NYSE:BOX) Earns Market Perform Rating from William Blair

BOX (NYSE:BOX)‘s stock had its “market perform” rating reiterated by analysts at William Blair in a research note issued on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports.

Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Wall Street Zen raised shares of BOX from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 14th. UBS Group lowered their target price on BOX from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 4th. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 target price on shares of BOX in a research report on Friday, March 20th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on BOX from $38.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of BOX in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BOX currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.57.

BOX Price Performance

NYSE:BOX opened at $23.58 on Monday. BOX has a 1-year low of $21.61 and a 1-year high of $38.80. The company has a 50-day moving average of $24.65 and a 200 day moving average of $28.99. The firm has a market cap of $3.26 billion, a PE ratio of 39.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.80.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, March 3rd. The software maker reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by $0.16. BOX had a net margin of 9.80% and a negative return on equity of 23.61%. The business had revenue of $305.88 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $305.64 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.42 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that BOX will post 0.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BOX announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, March 19th that permits the company to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization permits the software maker to reacquire up to 14.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at BOX

In other news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 17,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.72, for a total transaction of $420,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 1,294,195 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,992,500.40. This represents a 1.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Aaron Levie sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.72, for a total value of $370,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,907,030 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $71,861,781.60. The trade was a 0.51% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 79,836 shares of company stock worth $2,091,096 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 3.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BOX

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its holdings in shares of BOX by 15.2% during the second quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 560,329 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $19,146,000 after acquiring an additional 73,896 shares in the last quarter. Creative Planning boosted its stake in BOX by 84.3% in the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 39,251 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,341,000 after purchasing an additional 17,950 shares in the last quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC boosted its stake in BOX by 38.1% in the 2nd quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 955,286 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $32,637,000 after purchasing an additional 263,619 shares in the last quarter. Mizuho Markets Americas LLC purchased a new stake in BOX during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $20,851,000. Finally, Trek Financial LLC purchased a new stake in BOX during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $6,276,000. 86.74% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

BOX Company Profile

Box, Inc is a leading provider of cloud content management and file sharing solutions designed to support enterprises in securely managing, accessing and collaborating on digital content from anywhere. The company offers a unified platform that enables organizations to store, share and automate workflows across various departments, enhancing productivity and ensuring governance over sensitive information. Box’s services are tailored to meet the needs of industries such as healthcare, financial services, government and media, where compliance and data security are paramount.

The core offerings of Box include its Content Cloud platform, which provides content collaboration, workflow automation, data classification and secure file sharing.