Forsta AP Fonden Buys 59,900 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Forsta AP Fonden lifted its stake in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 62.4% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 155,900 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 59,900 shares during the quarter. Forsta AP Fonden’s holdings in Ball were worth $10,587,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

BALL has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. 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. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ball presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $71.08.

Ball Trading Down 0.9 %

NYSE:BALL opened at $64.03 on Monday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $65.36 and a 200-day moving average price of $65.13. The stock has a market cap of $19.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball Co. has a 12 month low of $45.49 and a 12 month high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $2.96 billion during 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 revenue was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.61 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Ball Co. will post 3.12 EPS for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. Ball’s 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.