BOX (NYSE:BOX) Receives “Market Perform” Rating from William Blair

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

A number of other equities analysts have also recently commented on the company. Wall Street Zen upgraded BOX from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Saturday, March 14th. UBS Group lowered their price target on BOX from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of BOX in a research note on Monday, December 29th. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a research report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of BOX from $40.00 to $36.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 4th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.57.

BOX Trading Up 3.3%

Shares of NYSE BOX opened at $24.65 on Monday. BOX has a 12-month low of $21.61 and a 12-month high of $38.80. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $24.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $29.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.80.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, March 3rd. The software maker reported $0.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.16. BOX had a negative return on equity of 23.61% and a net margin of 9.80%.The company had revenue of $305.88 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $305.64 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.42 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that BOX will post 0.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BOX declared that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, March 19th that allows the company to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the software maker to buy up to 14.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at BOX

In other BOX news, COO Olivia Nottebohm sold 4,612 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.78, for a total value of $118,897.36. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 465,219 shares in the company, valued at $11,993,345.82. This trade represents a 0.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Aaron Levie sold 15,000 shares of BOX 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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 2,907,030 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $71,861,781.60. This trade represents a 0.51% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 79,836 shares of company stock valued at $2,091,096 in the last quarter. 3.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BOX

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. First Horizon Corp grew its stake in BOX by 148.1% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Corp now owns 831 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 496 shares in the last quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of BOX in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. bought a new position in BOX in the first quarter worth approximately $31,000. Salomon & Ludwin LLC bought a new position in BOX in the third quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas purchased a new position in BOX during the 3rd quarter worth $35,000. Institutional investors own 86.74% of the company’s stock.

About BOX

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.