BOX’s (BOX) Market Perform Rating Reaffirmed at William Blair

William Blair reaffirmed their market perform rating on shares of BOX (NYSE:BOX) in a research note released on Monday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports.

BOX has been the subject of several other research reports. Wall Street Zen raised BOX from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 14th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of BOX from $38.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, March 12th. DA Davidson restated a “buy” rating and set a $45.00 target price on shares of BOX in a research report on Friday. 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 report on Wednesday, March 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of BOX in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.57.

BOX Price Performance

BOX opened at $24.53 on Monday. BOX has a 1-year low of $21.61 and a 1-year high of $38.80. The stock has a market cap of $3.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.80. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $24.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $29.06.

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

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

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Aaron Levie sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.72, for a total transaction of $370,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,907,030 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $71,861,781.60. This represents a 0.51% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 17,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.72, for a total transaction of $420,240.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 1,294,195 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,992,500.40. The trade was a 1.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 79,836 shares of company stock valued at $2,091,096 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 3.90% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BOX

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. First Horizon Corp grew its stake in shares of BOX by 148.1% during the 4th quarter. First Horizon Corp now owns 831 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 496 shares during the period. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. purchased a new position in shares of BOX in the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new position in BOX in the first quarter valued at $31,000. Salomon & Ludwin LLC acquired a new position in BOX in the third quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas purchased a new stake in BOX during the third quarter valued at about $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.