Polymer Capital Management US LLC Buys New Position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Polymer Capital Management US LLC purchased a new position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 16,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $893,000.

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on BALL. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Ball from $60.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on Ball from $75.00 to $66.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Citigroup reduced their target price on Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 6th. Truist Financial cut their price objective on Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Ball from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $63.30.

Ball Stock Performance

BALL stock opened at $48.54 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $51.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $57.34. Ball Co. has a 52 week low of $46.26 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The stock has a market cap of $13.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 3.83, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.69 and a current ratio of 1.00.

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

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

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 6.32%.

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.