BOX (NYSE:BOX) Reaches New 1-Year High on Strong Earnings

Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday following a better than expected earnings announcement. The stock traded as high as $32.14 and last traded at $31.81, with a volume of 3053425 shares. The stock had previously closed at $28.82.

The software maker reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.04. BOX had a net margin of 13.13% and a negative return on equity of 11.71%. The firm had revenue of $270.04 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $269.52 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.01 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “underperform” rating and issued a $21.00 target price on shares of BOX in a research report on Wednesday. UBS Group cut their price objective on BOX from $34.00 to $31.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 29th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $35.00 target price on shares of BOX in a report on Wednesday, May 29th. StockNews.com raised BOX from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on BOX from $32.00 to $30.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $30.33.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other BOX news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of BOX stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.05, for a total value of $351,650.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,513,661 shares in the company, valued at $40,944,530.05. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other BOX news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.05, for a total value of $351,650.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,513,661 shares in the company, valued at $40,944,530.05. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, VP Eli Berkovitch sold 3,300 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.90, for a total value of $85,470.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 152,372 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,946,434.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 59,560 shares of company stock worth $1,556,440. 4.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of BOX

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Quarry LP raised its stake in shares of BOX by 324.6% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,418 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $37,000 after purchasing an additional 1,084 shares during the period. a16z Perennial Management L.P. purchased a new position in BOX in the fourth quarter valued at about $48,000. TFO Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in BOX by 62,000.0% in the fourth quarter. TFO Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,863 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $48,000 after purchasing an additional 1,860 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank purchased a new stake in BOX in the 2nd quarter worth about $53,000. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in BOX by 31.7% during the second quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,627 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $69,000 after purchasing an additional 632 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.74% of the company’s stock.

BOX Stock Up 10.4 %

The stock has a market cap of $4.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.38 and a beta of 0.86. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $26.92 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $27.01.

About BOX

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.