Motley Fool Wealth Management LLC Reduces Stock Position in Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL)

Motley Fool Wealth Management LLC reduced its stake in Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) by 4.9% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 119,866 shares of the company’s stock after selling 6,162 shares during the period. Motley Fool Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Ball were worth $6,241,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in Ball by 44.2% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 8,002,327 shares of the company’s stock worth $416,681,000 after buying an additional 2,453,630 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in Ball by 5.1% in the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,370,274 shares of the company’s stock worth $227,560,000 after buying an additional 210,838 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in Ball by 13.7% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,055,441 shares of the company’s stock worth $168,447,000 after buying an additional 367,798 shares in the last quarter. London Co. of Virginia raised its stake in Ball by 61.1% in the fourth quarter. London Co. of Virginia now owns 3,054,393 shares of the company’s stock worth $168,389,000 after buying an additional 1,158,668 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in Ball by 15.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,026,421 shares of the company’s stock worth $166,847,000 after buying an additional 396,633 shares in the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on BALL. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Ball from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price target on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Ball from $60.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 15th. Loop Capital decreased their price target on shares of Ball from $83.00 to $78.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 7th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Ball from $50.00 to $54.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Ball currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $65.27.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BALL opened at $54.06 on Monday. Ball Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $43.51 and a fifty-two week high of $68.12. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $56.65 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $53.16. The company has a market capitalization of $14.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.01, a P/E/G ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 1.00.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.10 billion. Ball had a net margin of 4.49% and a return on equity of 16.81%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.74 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Ball Corporation will post 3.48 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 16th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 2nd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.5%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 41.45%.

Ball 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.