Ball (NYSE:BALL) to Buyback $4.00 billion in Shares

Ball (NYSE:BALL) declared that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Wednesday, January 29th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase up to 24.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently weighed in on BALL. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 target price on shares of Ball in a report on Monday, November 4th. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an “underweight” rating and set a $49.00 price target (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Ball from $78.00 to $75.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Mizuho raised Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, Truist Financial cut their target price on shares of Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $68.17.

Ball Trading Up 1.6 %

BALL opened at $56.23 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $56.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $61.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.24, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball has a twelve month low of $51.96 and a twelve month high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 last year, the company posted $0.83 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Ball will post 3.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd will be paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.42%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is 6.03%.

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.