Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Given Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) has earned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have issued a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $70.75.

BALL has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and set a $78.00 price target (up from $76.00) on shares of Ball in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $67.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, November 4th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th.

Institutional Trading of Ball

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in BALL. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its stake in Ball by 0.9% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 18,941 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,137,000 after buying an additional 162 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp lifted its stake in Ball by 2.0% in the second quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 8,743 shares of the company’s stock valued at $525,000 after buying an additional 174 shares during the period. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators lifted its stake in Ball by 17.0% in the second quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 1,280 shares of the company’s stock valued at $77,000 after buying an additional 186 shares during the period. Moors & Cabot Inc. lifted its stake in Ball by 4.5% in the third quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 4,442 shares of the company’s stock valued at $302,000 after buying an additional 192 shares during the period. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Ball by 1.2% in the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 16,895 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,147,000 after buying an additional 199 shares during the period. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Ball Stock Down 0.9 %

BALL stock opened at $61.94 on Friday. Ball has a 52 week low of $51.15 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The company has a market capitalization of $18.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 0.90. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $64.63 and its two-hundred day moving average is $64.73. The company has a current ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Ball had a net margin of 34.05% and a return on equity of 17.46%. The company had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.83 EPS. Ball’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Ball will post 3.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors 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 yield of 1.29%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 2nd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.03%.

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.