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

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the fourteen research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have assigned a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $70.83.

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on BALL shares. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Ball from $80.00 to $77.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Robert W. Baird raised Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Baird R W raised Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th.

Ball Stock Down 1.1 %

NYSE BALL opened at $66.43 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The company has a market cap of $20.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.00, a PEG ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a 50 day moving average of $63.93 and a 200-day moving average of $65.18. Ball has a 1-year low of $42.81 and a 1-year high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.10 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 19.45% and a net margin of 32.79%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.61 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Ball will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 3rd. Ball’s payout ratio is currently 6.02%.

Institutional Trading of Ball

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Jessup Wealth Management Inc acquired a new position in Ball during the 1st quarter worth about $7,479,000. Parnassus Investments LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 5.0% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 21,062,707 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,211,527,000 after acquiring an additional 998,527 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc boosted its holdings in Ball by 4.2% in the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,453,639 shares of the company’s stock valued at $97,917,000 after acquiring an additional 58,863 shares during the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Ball during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,973,000. Finally, QRG Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in Ball by 306.6% during the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 31,750 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,906,000 after purchasing an additional 23,941 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

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.