Morgan Stanley Cuts BOX (NYSE:BOX) Price Target to $33.00

BOX (NYSE:BOX) had its price target lowered by Morgan Stanley from $38.00 to $33.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the software maker’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also weighed in on BOX. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of BOX in a research report on Monday, December 29th. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $45.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Citigroup lowered their price objective on BOX from $40.00 to $36.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of BOX from $31.00 to $28.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 4th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, BOX has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $35.57.

BOX Price Performance

Shares of BOX stock opened at $24.88 on Thursday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $25.35 and a 200 day moving average of $29.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.56 billion, a PE ratio of 42.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 0.80. BOX has a 1-year low of $21.61 and a 1-year high of $38.80.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, March 3rd. The software maker reported $0.49 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $305.88 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $305.64 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.42 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that BOX will post 0.27 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, VP Eli Berkovitch sold 5,163 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.96, for a total transaction of $154,683.48. Following the sale, the vice president directly owned 123,684 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,705,572.64. This trade represents a 4.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Olivia Nottebohm sold 4,612 shares of BOX stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.78, for a total value of $118,897.36. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 465,219 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,993,345.82. The trade was a 0.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 84,999 shares of company stock worth $2,245,779 in the last 90 days. 3.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BOX

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of BOX. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its holdings in BOX by 823,134.5% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 3,054,200 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $91,351,000 after purchasing an additional 3,053,829 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in BOX during the fourth quarter valued at about $58,814,000. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd increased its position in BOX by 240.6% in the second quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 1,210,237 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $41,354,000 after buying an additional 854,953 shares in the last quarter. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC bought a new position in shares of BOX in the second quarter worth about $22,626,000. Finally, Mizuho Markets Americas LLC bought a new position in shares of BOX in the third quarter worth about $20,851,000. 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.