Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) have received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen research firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have given a hold recommendation, seven have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $70.75.

Several research analysts recently weighed in on BALL shares. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Ball from $63.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Mizuho raised Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $75.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd.

Institutional Trading of Ball

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in BALL. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ball by 4.7% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,954,876 shares of the company’s stock worth $453,144,000 after acquiring an additional 309,587 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its stake in Ball by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock worth $300,065,000 after purchasing an additional 588,282 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in Ball by 7.7% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,414,615 shares of the company’s stock worth $144,951,000 after buying an additional 171,924 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in Ball by 6.1% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,720,859 shares of the company’s stock valued at $116,864,000 after buying an additional 99,306 shares in the last quarter. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in shares of Ball by 458.6% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 1,018,648 shares of the company’s stock valued at $61,139,000 after buying an additional 836,293 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Ball Price Performance

Ball stock opened at $54.03 on Monday. Ball has a 52 week low of $53.85 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $16.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.07, a P/E/G ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 1.09. The business’s fifty day moving average is $59.36 and its two-hundred day moving average is $62.18.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Ball had a net margin of 34.05% and a return on equity of 17.46%. The firm had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.83 EPS. The company’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Ball will post 3.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.48%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is 6.03%.

Ball Company Profile

Ball Corporation supplies aluminum packaging products for the beverage, personal care, and household products industries in the United States, Brazil, and internationally. The company manufactures and sells aluminum beverage containers to fillers of carbonated soft drinks, beer, energy drinks, and other beverages.