BOX (NYSE:BOX) Raised to “Strong-Buy” at StockNews.com

BOX (NYSE:BOX) was upgraded by analysts at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note issued on Thursday.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on BOX. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of BOX from $29.00 to $32.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of BOX from $31.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. TheStreet raised shares of BOX from a “c” rating to a “b” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $32.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of BOX from $33.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $30.89.

BOX Stock Down 2.0 %

BOX stock opened at $27.38 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $27.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $26.10. BOX has a 12 month low of $23.29 and a 12 month high of $31.94. The stock has a market cap of $3.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.87, a P/E/G ratio of 9.42 and a beta of 0.84.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, March 5th. The software maker reported $0.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $262.88 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $262.92 million. BOX had a net margin of 12.43% and a negative return on equity of 9.46%. On average, equities research analysts expect that BOX will post 0.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Daniel J. Levin sold 73,660 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.40, for a total value of $2,091,944.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 43,940 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,247,896. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, Director Dana L. Evan sold 11,000 shares of BOX stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.47, for a total value of $313,170.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 116,535 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,317,751.45. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Daniel J. Levin sold 73,660 shares of BOX stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.40, for a total transaction of $2,091,944.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 43,940 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,247,896. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 120,660 shares of company stock worth $3,437,304. 4.90% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of BOX

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Fairfield Bush & CO. purchased a new stake in BOX during the 1st quarter valued at about $29,000. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. bought a new position in BOX during the 1st quarter valued at about $206,000. Natixis Advisors L.P. lifted its stake in BOX by 54.5% during the 1st quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. now owns 22,540 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $655,000 after acquiring an additional 7,953 shares during the period. MetLife Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in BOX by 55.3% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 74,326 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,160,000 after acquiring an additional 26,459 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of BOX by 18.6% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,091,273 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $31,713,000 after purchasing an additional 170,949 shares during the period. 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.