Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Short Interest Update

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) was the target of a significant drop in short interest during the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 6,130,000 shares, a drop of 15.3% from the August 15th total of 7,240,000 shares. Approximately 2.0% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 1,810,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.4 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on the company. UBS Group raised their price objective on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. Baird R W raised Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Ball from $73.00 to $66.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 8th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $69.00 to $78.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on Ball from $80.00 to $77.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, August 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ball has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $70.83.

Institutional Trading of Ball

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of BALL. 9258 Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ball during the fourth quarter worth $210,000. Private Advisor Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Ball by 39.1% in the 4th quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 8,910 shares of the company’s stock valued at $512,000 after purchasing an additional 2,504 shares during the period. Principal Securities Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Ball in the fourth quarter valued at about $74,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Ball by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 7,704 shares of the company’s stock worth $443,000 after buying an additional 194 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Ball by 21.8% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,134,123 shares of the company’s stock worth $122,764,000 after buying an additional 381,780 shares in the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ball Trading Down 1.0 %

Ball stock traded down $0.70 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $66.52. 1,392,677 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,840,256. Ball has a 52 week low of $42.81 and a 52 week high of $71.32. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.65 billion, a PE ratio of 5.01, a P/E/G ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $63.46 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.11.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.61 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Ball will post 3.12 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were given a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.20%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.