3,602 Shares in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Bought by Latitude Advisors LLC

Latitude Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 3,602 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of BALL. Quarry LP increased its holdings in shares of Ball by 446.3% in the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 448 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 366 shares during the last quarter. Resurgent Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Covington Capital Management acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators grew its stake in shares of Ball by 80.4% in the third quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 572 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 255 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the third quarter valued at about $29,000. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. TheStreet raised shares of Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research report on Friday, March 8th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Ball to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Wolfe Research began coverage on shares of Ball in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a report on Monday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $65.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ball

In related news, insider Daniel William Fisher acquired 3,869 shares of Ball stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 14th. The stock was bought at an average price of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Ball Stock Performance

NYSE:BALL opened at $63.94 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $20.18 billion, a PE ratio of 28.54, a P/E/G ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $64.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $57.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a current ratio of 0.79. Ball Co. has a fifty-two week low of $42.81 and a fifty-two week high of $67.97.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $3.40 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.56 billion. Ball had a net margin of 5.04% and a return on equity of 23.81%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.44 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is presently 35.71%.

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.