Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Shares Sold by Texas Permanent School Fund Corp

Texas Permanent School Fund Corp lowered its holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 22.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 50,469 shares of the company’s stock after selling 14,625 shares during the period. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp’s holdings in Ball were worth $3,029,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in BALL. 9258 Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Ball during the 4th quarter valued at $210,000. Private Advisor Group LLC grew its holdings in Ball by 39.1% during the 4th quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 8,910 shares of the company’s stock valued at $512,000 after purchasing an additional 2,504 shares in the last quarter. Principal Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in Ball during the 4th quarter valued at $74,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in Ball by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 7,704 shares of the company’s stock valued at $443,000 after purchasing an additional 194 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in Ball by 21.8% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,134,123 shares of the company’s stock valued at $122,764,000 after purchasing an additional 381,780 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BALL has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $69.00 to $78.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Baird R W upgraded shares of Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Ball from $80.00 to $77.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Ball from $73.00 to $66.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $70.83.

Ball Trading Up 0.6 %

Ball stock opened at $66.00 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $20.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.97, a PEG ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.88. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $63.01 and its 200-day moving average is $65.05. Ball Co. 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 quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.18.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.70 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.10 billion. Ball had a net margin of 32.79% and a return on equity of 19.45%. Ball’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.61 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Ball Co. will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 3rd will be given a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.21%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is presently 6.02%.

Ball 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.