Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) have received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the eleven research firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, two have given a hold recommendation and eight have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $31.22.

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on BOX. UBS Group boosted their target price on BOX from $31.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on BOX from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup raised their target price on BOX from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised shares of BOX to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 16th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of BOX from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th.

BOX Trading Up 2.3 %

NYSE BOX opened at $34.28 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $32.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $29.40. BOX has a 12 month low of $23.29 and a 12 month high of $35.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.39 and a beta of 0.85.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 27th. The software maker reported $0.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.40 by $0.04. BOX had a net margin of 13.94% and a negative return on equity of 14.41%. The firm had revenue of $270.04 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $269.52 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.01 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that BOX will post 0.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.52, for a total transaction of $422,760.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,474,509 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,951,032.68. This represents a 0.87 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Jack R. Lazar sold 7,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.68, for a total transaction of $228,760.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 29,197 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $954,157.96. This trade represents a 19.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 58,500 shares of company stock worth $1,939,895 over the last quarter. 4.10% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of BOX

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in BOX by 14.9% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,313,882 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $490,329,000 after buying an additional 2,249,082 shares in the last quarter. American International Group Inc. grew its stake in BOX by 8.6% during the first quarter. American International Group Inc. now owns 76,185 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,158,000 after acquiring an additional 6,062 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in BOX by 358.3% during the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 7,842 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $221,000 after acquiring an additional 6,131 shares during the period. Bayesian Capital Management LP lifted its stake in BOX by 799.2% in the 1st quarter. Bayesian Capital Management LP now owns 98,900 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,801,000 after purchasing an additional 87,901 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. lifted its stake in BOX by 19.4% in the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 2,374,580 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $67,248,000 after purchasing an additional 386,149 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.74% of the company’s stock.

BOX Company Profile

Box, Inc provides a cloud content management platform that enables organizations of various sizes to manage and share their content from anywhere on any device. The company's Software-as-a-Service platform enables users to work with their content as they need from secure external collaboration and sharing, workspaces and portals, e-signature processes, and content workflows improving employee productivity and accelerating business processes.