BOX (NYSE:BOX) Hits New 52-Week High – Should You Buy?

Shares of Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) hit a new 52-week high on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $34.03 and last traded at $33.95, with a volume of 28492 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $33.55.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BOX has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and set a $21.00 target price on shares of BOX in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised BOX to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Citigroup raised their price objective on BOX from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on BOX from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on BOX from $31.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $31.22.

BOX Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $4.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.71 and a beta of 0.85. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $32.54 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $28.87.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 27th. The software maker reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.40 by $0.04. BOX had a negative return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 13.94%. 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 previous year, the business earned $0.01 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Box, Inc. will post 0.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Aaron Levie sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.92, for a total transaction of $329,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 3,009,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $99,061,382.60. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other BOX news, CEO Aaron Levie sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.92, for a total value of $329,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 3,009,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $99,061,382.60. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Jack R. Lazar sold 7,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.68, for a total value of $228,760.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 29,197 shares in the company, valued at $954,157.96. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 43,000 shares of company stock valued at $1,408,290 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 4.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of BOX

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BOX. Quarry LP lifted its position in BOX by 324.6% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,418 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $37,000 after buying an additional 1,084 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in BOX by 143.1% during the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,337 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $44,000 after acquiring an additional 787 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank acquired a new stake in BOX during the second quarter worth about $53,000. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in BOX by 31.7% during the second quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 2,627 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $69,000 after acquiring an additional 632 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake in BOX by 245.4% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,162 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $71,000 after acquiring an additional 1,536 shares during the last quarter. 86.74% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.