DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale Has $79.06 Million Holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale trimmed its holdings in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 16.7% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,184,629 shares of the company’s stock after selling 238,306 shares during the quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale owned about 0.38% of Ball worth $79,056,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Independence Bank of Kentucky acquired a new position in Ball in the 1st quarter valued at $47,000. Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Ball in the fourth quarter valued at about $43,000. Friedenthal Financial bought a new position in shares of Ball in the fourth quarter worth about $43,000. NBC Securities Inc. lifted its position in shares of Ball by 31.0% during the 4th quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 769 shares of the company’s stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 182 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Manchester Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Ball by 2,341.5% during the 4th quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 1,001 shares of the company’s stock worth $58,000 after purchasing an additional 960 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ball

In other Ball news, Director Pedro Henrique Mariani sold 5,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.90, for a total transaction of $349,500.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,844 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $688,095.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Company insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on BALL shares. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Ball from $63.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, April 29th. Citigroup decreased their price objective on Ball from $73.00 to $66.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 8th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Ball from $64.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 17th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Ball from $71.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, May 6th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Ball from $74.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, April 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $69.23.

Ball Trading Up 0.3 %

NYSE:BALL traded up $0.22 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $64.76. The company had a trading volume of 2,380,943 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,638,834. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.93 and a current ratio of 1.18. Ball Co. has a fifty-two week low of $42.81 and a fifty-two week high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $20.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 0.85. The business’s fifty day moving average is $63.55 and its two-hundred day moving average is $63.99.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.10 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.61 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Ball Co. will post 3.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, April 24th that allows the company to repurchase 40,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.24%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.02%.

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.