Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Short Interest Update

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,130,000 shares, an increase of 6.4% from the September 30th total of 5,760,000 shares. Approximately 2.0% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 1,460,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 4.2 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BALL has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $77.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, Truist Financial restated a “buy” rating and set a $78.00 price objective (up from $76.00) on shares of Ball in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $71.08.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ball

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. JB Capital LLC raised its stake in Ball by 11.0% during the third quarter. JB Capital LLC now owns 52,400 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,559,000 after buying an additional 5,207 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Ball by 1.1% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 364,856 shares of the company’s stock worth $24,777,000 after acquiring an additional 3,967 shares in the last quarter. Advisor Resource Council acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the 3rd quarter valued at about $324,000. M&G PLC boosted its position in shares of Ball by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. M&G PLC now owns 790,137 shares of the company’s stock valued at $53,729,000 after purchasing an additional 38,714 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clarity Financial LLC boosted its position in shares of Ball by 16.1% during the 3rd quarter. Clarity Financial LLC now owns 4,145 shares of the company’s stock valued at $281,000 after purchasing an additional 576 shares in the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Ball Price Performance

Ball stock traded down $0.24 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $59.01. The company had a trading volume of 1,865,386 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,803,630. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $65.29 and a 200 day simple moving average of $65.05. The company has a market cap of $17.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.47, a P/E/G ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball has a fifty-two week low of $47.56 and a fifty-two week high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 19.45% and a net margin of 32.79%. Ball’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.83 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Ball will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.36%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is currently 6.04%.

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.