Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) to Issue $0.20 Quarterly Dividend

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 29th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.45%.

Ball has increased its dividend payment by an average of 4.6% annually over the last three years. Ball has a payout ratio of 20.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Ball to earn $3.55 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.5%.

Ball Stock Performance

NYSE BALL opened at $55.35 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.17, a PEG ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.93. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $56.77 and a 200 day moving average of $61.33. The company has a current ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball has a twelve month low of $51.96 and a twelve month high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Ball had a return on equity of 17.46% and a net margin of 34.05%. The business had revenue of $3.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.83 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Ball will post 3.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on BALL shares. Mizuho raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Citigroup cut their price objective on Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. UBS Group upgraded Ball from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $62.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Truist Financial dropped their price target on Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company restated an “underweight” rating and issued a $49.00 price objective (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a report on Thursday, January 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ball currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $68.17.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, January 29th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to buy up to 24.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are 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.