Analysts Set Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Price Target at $71.25

Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) have been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the fourteen ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $71.08.

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on BALL shares. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on Ball from $77.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Morgan Stanley raised Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BALL. Boston Partners raised its holdings in Ball by 114.1% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 4,057,645 shares of the company’s stock worth $273,347,000 after purchasing an additional 2,162,167 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in shares of Ball by 458.6% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 1,018,648 shares of the company’s stock worth $61,139,000 after acquiring an additional 836,293 shares in the last quarter. M&G Plc purchased a new position in Ball during the 1st quarter valued at about $50,193,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Ball by 0.8% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,855,312 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,415,214,000 after acquiring an additional 267,479 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AMI Asset Management Corp grew its holdings in Ball by 52.2% in the first quarter. AMI Asset Management Corp now owns 775,834 shares of the company’s stock worth $52,260,000 after purchasing an additional 266,114 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Ball Stock Up 0.7 %

Shares of BALL opened at $67.25 on Wednesday. Ball has a 1 year low of $42.81 and a 1 year high of $71.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $65.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.18. The firm has a market cap of $20.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.06, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.10 billion. Ball had a net margin of 32.79% and a return on equity of 19.45%. The firm’s revenue was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.61 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Ball will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.19%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 6.02%.

About Ball

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.