State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Raises Stake in Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D lifted its stake in shares of Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX) by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 69,211 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 834 shares during the quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D’s holdings in BOX were worth $2,265,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of BOX. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in BOX by 14.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 17,313,882 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $490,329,000 after acquiring an additional 2,249,082 shares during the period. Earnest Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of BOX by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 7,960,924 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $210,487,000 after purchasing an additional 620,450 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. grew its holdings in shares of BOX by 4.2% during the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 3,078,857 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $81,405,000 after purchasing an additional 125,435 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of BOX by 9.8% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,564,668 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $67,809,000 after purchasing an additional 229,314 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. raised its holdings in BOX by 19.4% in the 1st quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 2,374,580 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $67,248,000 after buying an additional 386,149 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.74% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at BOX

In other news, Director Jack R. Lazar sold 7,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.68, for a total transaction of $228,760.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 29,197 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $954,157.96. This trade represents a 19.34 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Dylan C. Smith sold 13,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.89, for a total value of $427,570.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 1,500,661 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,356,740.29. This trade represents a 0.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 58,500 shares of company stock worth $1,939,895 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 4.10% of the company’s stock.

BOX Stock Performance

Shares of BOX stock opened at $34.28 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $32.68 and a 200-day simple moving average of $29.08. The company has a market cap of $4.91 billion, a PE ratio of 43.39 and a beta of 0.85. Box, Inc. has a one year low of $23.29 and a one year high of $35.07.

BOX (NYSE:BOX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 27th. The software maker reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $270.04 million for 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%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.01 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Box, Inc. will post 0.23 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on BOX shares. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target 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. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of BOX to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 16th. Citigroup upped their price target on 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 reaffirmed an “underperform” rating and issued a $21.00 price objective on shares of BOX in a research note on Wednesday, August 28th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of BOX in a research note on Thursday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, BOX presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $31.22.

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.