State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Has $6.88 Million Holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D lessened its stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 35.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 114,642 shares of the company’s stock after selling 62,552 shares during the quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D’s holdings in Ball were worth $6,881,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,855,312 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,415,214,000 after purchasing an additional 267,479 shares during the last quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 5.0% in the 4th quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 21,062,707 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,211,527,000 after purchasing an additional 998,527 shares during the last quarter. Putnam Investments LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 39.5% in the 4th quarter. Putnam Investments LLC now owns 5,815,825 shares of the company’s stock valued at $334,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,645,909 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 114.1% in the 1st quarter. Boston Partners now owns 4,057,645 shares of the company’s stock valued at $273,347,000 after purchasing an additional 2,162,167 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Ball in the 4th quarter valued at about $168,372,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Ball Stock Performance

Shares of BALL opened at $66.00 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.18. Ball Co. has a twelve month low of $42.81 and a twelve month high of $71.32. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $63.01 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $65.05. The firm has a market cap of $20.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.97, a PEG ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.88.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.04. Ball had a net margin of 32.79% and a return on equity of 19.45%. The firm had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.10 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.61 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.12 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd will be issued a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.21%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.02%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

BALL has been the topic of several recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $80.00 to $77.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $64.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ball has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $70.83.

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.