Amalgamated Bank Decreases Stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Amalgamated Bank lessened its holdings in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 4.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 57,276 shares of the company’s stock after selling 2,703 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank’s holdings in Ball were worth $3,158,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Ball by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,954,876 shares of the company’s stock worth $453,144,000 after acquiring an additional 309,587 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its stake in Ball by 15.4% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock worth $300,065,000 after purchasing an additional 588,282 shares during the period. M&G PLC boosted its holdings in Ball by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 790,137 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,729,000 after purchasing an additional 38,714 shares during the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC grew its stake in shares of Ball by 14.1% in the 3rd quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 707,279 shares of the company’s stock valued at $48,030,000 after buying an additional 87,577 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ball by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 692,380 shares of the company’s stock worth $47,020,000 after buying an additional 2,762 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently commented on BALL shares. Citigroup decreased their price objective on Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 6th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on Ball from $75.00 to $66.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Ball from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target 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. Finally, Barclays decreased their price objective on shares of Ball from $72.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $65.25.

Ball Stock Up 1.2 %

Ball stock opened at $52.71 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90. Ball Co. has a twelve month low of $48.95 and a twelve month high of $71.32. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $53.27 and its 200-day simple moving average is $59.61.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $2.88 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.92 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 16.17% and a net margin of 33.98%. Ball’s revenue was down .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.78 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Ball Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.52%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.32%.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Wednesday, January 29th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 24.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

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.