Allstate Corp Makes New $481,000 Investment in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Allstate Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund acquired 8,717 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $481,000.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Everence Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Ball during the fourth quarter worth approximately $774,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Ball during the 4th quarter worth $94,861,000. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 531,933.3% during the 4th quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA now owns 47,883 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,707,000 after acquiring an additional 47,874 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Ball by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,891,046 shares of the company’s stock worth $104,253,000 after purchasing an additional 36,809 shares during the period. Finally, VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Ball by 99.5% during the fourth quarter. VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC now owns 37,719 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,053,000 after purchasing an additional 18,809 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. UBS Group dropped their price target on Ball from $60.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Ball from $72.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. 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. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, five have given 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 an average price target of $63.30.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BALL opened at $52.38 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $52.09 and a 200 day simple moving average of $57.69. 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 1 year low of $48.95 and a 1 year high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $14.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.14, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.99.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $2.88 billion during 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%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.78 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Ball Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were given a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is 6.32%.

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

Ball 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.