American Century Companies Inc. Sells 37,466 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

American Century Companies Inc. reduced its stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 6.8% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 514,977 shares of the company’s stock after selling 37,466 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc.’s holdings in Ball were worth $28,391,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of BALL. Mizuho Securities USA LLC lifted its position in shares of Ball by 43.7% during the 4th quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC now owns 28,284 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,559,000 after buying an additional 8,599 shares in the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP lifted its holdings in Ball by 113.8% during the fourth quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 55,422 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,055,000 after acquiring an additional 29,495 shares during the period. Intech Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Ball in the fourth quarter worth $980,000. RD Lewis Holdings Inc. bought a new position in Ball in the 4th quarter valued at $277,000. Finally, Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. increased its position in shares of Ball by 4.7% during the 4th quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. now owns 46,815 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,581,000 after purchasing an additional 2,120 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on BALL shares. 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 report on Tuesday, December 10th. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Ball from $60.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an “underweight” rating and issued a $49.00 price objective (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, Citigroup decreased their target price on Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $63.30.

Ball Stock Down 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE BALL opened at $51.45 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $52.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $57.93. Ball Co. has a 52 week low of $48.95 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The company has a market cap of $14.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.06, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.99. 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 data on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.03. Ball had a net margin of 33.98% and a return on equity of 16.17%. The company had revenue of $2.88 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.92 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.78 earnings per share. Ball’s revenue for the quarter was down .8% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.56%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is 6.32%.

Ball announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, January 29th that allows the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to reacquire up to 24.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is 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.