Picton Mahoney Asset Management Acquires 213 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Picton Mahoney Asset Management grew its holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 68.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 522 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 213 shares during the quarter. Picton Mahoney Asset Management’s holdings in Ball were worth $29,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Aviso Financial Inc. lifted its position in Ball by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Aviso Financial Inc. now owns 712,962 shares of the company’s stock worth $39,306,000 after purchasing an additional 21,069 shares during the period. LBP AM SA raised its stake in Ball by 124.4% during the fourth quarter. LBP AM SA now owns 587,099 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,367,000 after acquiring an additional 325,497 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its stake in Ball by 49.2% during the fourth quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 4,872 shares of the company’s stock worth $269,000 after acquiring an additional 1,606 shares in the last quarter. Natural Investments LLC acquired a new position in Ball during the fourth quarter worth about $1,249,000. Finally, Independent Advisor Alliance raised its stake in Ball by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance now owns 4,478 shares of the company’s stock worth $247,000 after acquiring an additional 644 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on Ball from $70.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Wells Fargo & Company restated an “underweight” rating and set a $49.00 price target (down from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Ball from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Ball from $75.00 to $66.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 6th. Finally, Mizuho upgraded Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $64.64.

Ball Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of BALL opened at $52.31 on Tuesday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $52.60 and a 200 day moving average of $58.71. Ball Co. has a fifty-two week low of $48.95 and a fifty-two week high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $14.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.69 and a current ratio of 1.00.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.03. Ball had a return on equity of 16.17% and a net margin of 33.98%. The company had revenue of $2.88 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.92 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.78 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.48 EPS for the current year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.53%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.32%.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan 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 plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

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.