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

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 29th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd.

Ball has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.6% annually over the last three years. Ball has a dividend payout ratio of 20.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Ball to earn $3.95 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 20.3%.

Ball Trading Up 1.2 %

BALL opened at $52.71 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.94. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $53.27 and its 200-day moving average is $59.63. Ball has a 52-week low of $48.95 and a 52-week high of $71.32. The company has a quick ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 1.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $2.88 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.92 billion. Ball had a net margin of 33.98% and a return on equity of 16.17%. The business’s revenue was down .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.78 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Ball will post 3.48 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on shares of Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Truist Financial dropped their price target on shares of Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Mizuho upgraded shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Ball from $75.00 to $66.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $65.25.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Wednesday, January 29th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to buy up to 24.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.