Wall Street Zen Downgrades BOX (NYSE:BOX) to Buy

BOX (NYSE:BOX) was downgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report issued on Saturday.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on BOX. Citigroup dropped their target price 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. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $45.00 price target on shares of BOX in a report on Friday, March 20th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of BOX from $38.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 12th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of BOX in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, William Blair reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of BOX in a report on Monday, March 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BOX currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.57.

BOX Stock Down 0.2%

NYSE:BOX opened at $23.03 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $24.47 and its two-hundred day moving average is $28.79. BOX has a 52 week low of $21.61 and a 52 week high of $38.80. The company has a market cap of $3.19 billion, a PE ratio of 39.04, a P/E/G ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 0.80.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, March 3rd. The software maker reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $305.88 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $305.64 million. BOX had a negative return on equity of 23.61% and a net margin of 9.80%.The business’s revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.42 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that BOX will post 0.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BOX announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback program on Thursday, March 19th that authorizes the company to repurchase $500.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the software maker to repurchase up to 14.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 17,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.75, for a total transaction of $420,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 1,311,195 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,452,076.25. This represents a 1.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Aaron Levie sold 15,000 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 $370,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,907,030 shares in the company, valued at approximately $71,861,781.60. This trade represents a 0.51% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 75,224 shares of company stock valued at $1,953,474. 3.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BOX

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of BOX by 2.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,487,018 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $596,576,000 after buying an additional 497,658 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its holdings in BOX by 15.5% in the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 4,511,258 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $134,932,000 after buying an additional 604,946 shares in the last quarter. RGM Capital LLC grew its holdings in BOX by 8.2% in the 4th quarter. RGM Capital LLC now owns 3,330,168 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $99,605,000 after buying an additional 251,520 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. increased its position in BOX by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 3,316,783 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $107,033,000 after acquiring an additional 94,289 shares during the period. Finally, Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its position 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 valued at $91,351,000 after acquiring an additional 3,053,829 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.