Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Position Trimmed by Wealthfront Advisers LLC

Wealthfront Advisers LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 17.9% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 17,073 shares of the company’s stock after selling 3,729 shares during the quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC’s holdings in Ball were worth $941,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in BALL. GSA Capital Partners LLP boosted its holdings in Ball by 6.8% during the third quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 9,519 shares of the company’s stock worth $646,000 after buying an additional 608 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Ball by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 692,380 shares of the company’s stock valued at $47,020,000 after acquiring an additional 2,762 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in Ball by 402.1% in the 3rd quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 265,261 shares of the company’s stock worth $18,014,000 after purchasing an additional 212,430 shares during the period. Metis Global Partners LLC boosted its stake in Ball by 5.0% in the 3rd quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC now owns 14,898 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,012,000 after purchasing an additional 712 shares during the period. Finally, ING Groep NV acquired a new position in Ball in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $2,757,000. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and issued a $49.00 price objective (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on shares of Ball from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Ball from $75.00 to $66.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Ball from $60.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Ball currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $64.64.

Ball Trading Up 1.8 %

BALL opened at $51.91 on Friday. Ball Co. has a fifty-two week low of $48.95 and a fifty-two week high of $71.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.69. The company has a market cap of $14.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.99. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $52.64 and a 200 day simple moving average of $58.81.

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

Ball declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, January 29th that allows the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to reacquire up to 24.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is 6.32%.

About Ball

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.