Ball Co. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NYSE:BALL)

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 23rd, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share on Monday, December 16th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.22%.

Ball has raised its dividend by an average of 10.1% per year over the last three years. Ball has a dividend payout ratio of 22.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ball to earn $3.55 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.5%.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of Ball stock traded up $0.01 on Wednesday, hitting $65.48. 1,347,021 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,800,576. Ball has a 12-month low of $43.29 and a 12-month high of $71.32. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The company has a market cap of $20.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.92, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $65.24 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.17.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.04. Ball had a return on equity of 19.45% and a net margin of 32.79%. The business had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.10 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.61 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Ball will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on BALL shares. Baird R W raised Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $69.00 to $78.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Truist Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $78.00 price target (up from $76.00) on shares of Ball in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $71.08.

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.