Signaturefd LLC Purchases 827 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Signaturefd LLC lifted its position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 57.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,270 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 827 shares during the quarter. Signaturefd LLC’s holdings in Ball were worth $154,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Ball in the third quarter worth about $222,000. Evernest Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Ball in the 3rd quarter valued at $2,518,000. Toth Financial Advisory Corp lifted its position in shares of Ball by 14.0% during the third quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp now owns 50,167 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,407,000 after purchasing an additional 6,176 shares during the last quarter. Castleview Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 9.7% during the third quarter. Castleview Partners LLC now owns 2,501 shares of the company’s stock valued at $170,000 after purchasing an additional 221 shares during the period. Finally, Raymond James & Associates grew its holdings in shares of Ball by 6.1% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,720,859 shares of the company’s stock worth $116,864,000 after purchasing an additional 99,306 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BALL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Ball from $77.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Baird R W upgraded Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 price objective for the company in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ball currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $71.08.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BALL opened at $64.03 on Monday. Ball Co. has a fifty-two week low of $45.49 and a fifty-two week high of $71.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.18. The company has a market cap of $19.87 billion, a PE ratio of 4.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $65.36 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.13.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share (EPS) 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 business had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.61 EPS. Ball’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Ball Co. will post 3.12 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.25%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is currently 6.02%.

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.