Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT Acquires New Stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT bought a new position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 12,165 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $730,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Ball by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,855,312 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,415,214,000 after buying an additional 267,479 shares during the period. Parnassus Investments LLC boosted its position 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 acquiring an additional 998,527 shares in the last quarter. Putnam Investments LLC increased its holdings in shares of Ball by 39.5% in the 4th quarter. Putnam Investments LLC now owns 5,815,825 shares of the company’s stock valued at $334,526,000 after acquiring an additional 1,645,909 shares during the period. Boston Partners raised its position in shares of Ball by 114.1% in the 1st quarter. Boston Partners now owns 4,057,645 shares of the company’s stock worth $273,347,000 after acquiring an additional 2,162,167 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Ball during the 4th quarter worth $168,372,000. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BALL has been the subject of several analyst reports. Citigroup decreased their price target 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. Baird R W upgraded shares of Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on Ball from $64.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 14th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Ball from $80.00 to $77.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $70.83.

Ball Price Performance

NYSE:BALL opened at $67.11 on Friday. 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 company has a 50 day moving average price of $63.59 and a 200-day moving average price of $65.12. Ball Co. has a 1-year low of $42.81 and a 1-year high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $20.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.88.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share 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 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 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.12 EPS for the current year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.19%. 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.