Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) Sees Large Increase in Short Interest

Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 13,000,000 shares, an increase of 11.6% from the August 31st total of 11,650,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,990,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 6.5 days. Approximately 9.5% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Insider Activity

In other BOX news, CEO Aaron Levie sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 directly owns 3,009,155 shares in the company, valued at approximately $99,061,382.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other BOX news, CEO Aaron Levie sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.92, for a total value of $329,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 3,009,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $99,061,382.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.97, for a total transaction of $324,610.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 1,526,661 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,120,725.17. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 58,500 shares of company stock valued at $1,724,915. Insiders own 4.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BOX. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of BOX by 14.9% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,313,882 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $490,329,000 after buying an additional 2,249,082 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of BOX by 8.5% during the second quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 7,960,924 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $210,487,000 after acquiring an additional 620,450 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in shares of BOX by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 3,078,857 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $81,405,000 after acquiring an additional 125,435 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of BOX by 9.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,564,668 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $67,809,000 after purchasing an additional 229,314 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 386,149 shares during the period. 86.74% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on BOX. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of BOX from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “underperform” rating and set a $21.00 price target on shares of BOX in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. StockNews.com raised shares of BOX from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of BOX to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of BOX from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $31.22.

BOX Trading Down 2.9 %

Shares of NYSE BOX traded down $0.94 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $31.79. The company had a trading volume of 2,341,163 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,079,136. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $30.23 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $27.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.59 billion, a PE ratio of 43.54 and a beta of 0.85. BOX has a twelve month low of $23.29 and a twelve month high of $33.95.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 27th. The software maker reported $0.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.40 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $270.04 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $269.52 million. BOX had a net margin of 13.94% and a negative return on equity of 14.41%. BOX’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.01 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that BOX will post 0.23 EPS for the current year.

BOX Company Profile

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.