Waterloo Capital L.P. Has $809,000 Stock Holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Waterloo Capital L.P. grew its holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 64.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 13,474 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 5,293 shares during the quarter. Waterloo Capital L.P.’s holdings in Ball were worth $809,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Ball by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,855,312 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,415,214,000 after purchasing an additional 267,479 shares in the last quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC lifted its holdings in Ball by 5.0% during 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 lifted its holdings in Ball by 39.5% during 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 lifted its holdings in Ball by 114.1% during 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 Ball during the 4th quarter valued at about $168,372,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on BALL shares. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Ball from $64.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 17th. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Ball from $73.00 to $66.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 8th. UBS Group boosted their target price 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. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $70.83.

Ball Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE:BALL opened at $66.52 on Thursday. Ball Co. has a one year low of $42.81 and a one year high of $71.32. The company has a 50 day moving average of $63.46 and a 200-day moving average of $65.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The stock has a market cap of $20.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.01, a P/E/G ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.88.

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

Ball Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.20%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is currently 6.02%.

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.