Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) has received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the ten research firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $35.5714.

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of BOX from $38.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 12th. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of BOX from $40.00 to $36.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. William Blair reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of BOX in a research note on Monday, March 23rd. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of BOX from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of BOX from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, April 25th.

BOX Stock Up 3.5%

Shares of BOX stock opened at $25.04 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $3.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 0.71. BOX has a fifty-two week low of $21.34 and a fifty-two week high of $38.80. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $23.93 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $27.32.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, March 3rd. The software maker reported $0.49 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $305.88 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $305.64 million. BOX had a net margin of 9.80% and a negative return on equity of 23.61%. BOX’s revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.42 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that BOX will post 0.34 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Insider Activity at BOX

In other news, Director Dana L. Evan sold 17,034 shares of BOX stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.24, for a total transaction of $412,904.16. Following the sale, the director owned 113,525 shares in the company, valued at $2,751,846. This trade represents a 13.05% 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, COO Olivia Nottebohm sold 6,528 shares of BOX stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.07, for a total transaction of $157,128.96. Following the sale, the chief operating officer owned 487,488 shares in the company, valued at $11,733,836.16. This represents a 1.32% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 111,954 shares of company stock valued at $2,712,131. 3.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of BOX

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. First Horizon Corp raised its stake in shares of BOX by 148.1% during the fourth quarter. First Horizon Corp now owns 831 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 496 shares during the period. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of BOX during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Salomon & Ludwin LLC purchased a new stake in shares of BOX during the third quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of BOX during the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas purchased a new stake in shares of BOX during the third quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.74% of the company’s stock.

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.