BOX (NYSE:BOX) Cut to “Equal Weight” at Morgan Stanley

BOX (NYSE:BOX) was downgraded by stock analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, Briefing.com reports. They currently have a $32.00 price target on the software maker’s stock, down from their prior price target of $35.00. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 20.39% from the company’s current price.

BOX has been the subject of several other research reports. StockNews.com raised BOX from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. TheStreet raised BOX from a “c” rating to a “b” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and set a $21.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $32.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a research report on Wednesday, March 20th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on BOX from $33.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $30.89.

BOX Stock Performance

NYSE:BOX opened at $26.58 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.67, a P/E/G ratio of 9.15 and a beta of 0.85. BOX has a 52-week low of $23.29 and a 52-week high of $31.94. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $27.37 and a 200 day moving average of $26.50.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, March 5th. The software maker reported $0.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $262.88 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $262.92 million. BOX had a negative return on equity of 9.46% and a net margin of 12.43%. Equities analysts forecast that BOX will post 0.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at BOX

In other news, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.08, for a total value of $339,040.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,565,912 shares in the company, valued at approximately $40,838,984.96. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In related news, Director Daniel J. Levin sold 73,660 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.40, for a total value of $2,091,944.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 43,940 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,247,896. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.08, for a total value of $339,040.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,565,912 shares in the company, valued at $40,838,984.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 133,660 shares of company stock worth $3,774,134 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 4.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BOX

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in BOX. Comerica Bank boosted its holdings in shares of BOX by 964.7% in the first quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 85,081 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,409,000 after purchasing an additional 77,090 shares during the period. Tidal Investments LLC bought a new position in BOX in the first quarter worth approximately $391,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. raised its stake in BOX by 19.4% in the first quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 2,374,580 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $67,248,000 after buying an additional 386,149 shares in the last quarter. Bayesian Capital Management LP raised its stake in BOX by 799.2% in the first quarter. Bayesian Capital Management LP now owns 98,900 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,801,000 after buying an additional 87,901 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Earnest Partners LLC raised its stake in BOX by 10.5% in the first quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 7,340,474 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $207,882,000 after buying an additional 699,882 shares in the last quarter. 86.74% of the stock is owned by 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.