Latitude Advisors LLC Acquires Shares of 3,602 Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Latitude Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 3,602 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in BALL. Veritable L.P. lifted its stake in Ball by 0.9% during the first quarter. Veritable L.P. now owns 21,318 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,175,000 after purchasing an additional 180 shares during the last quarter. JGP Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in Ball by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. JGP Wealth Management LLC now owns 15,896 shares of the company’s stock worth $914,000 after purchasing an additional 208 shares during the last quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Ball by 4.3% during the second quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 5,141 shares of the company’s stock worth $299,000 after purchasing an additional 211 shares during the last quarter. Wealthsource Partners LLC lifted its stake in Ball by 4.7% during the third quarter. Wealthsource Partners LLC now owns 4,784 shares of the company’s stock worth $238,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CENTRAL TRUST Co lifted its stake in Ball by 12.8% during the third quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 2,203 shares of the company’s stock worth $110,000 after purchasing an additional 250 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada upgraded Ball from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $61.00 to $74.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Barclays restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $71.00 price objective (up from $66.00) on shares of Ball in a research note on Thursday, April 4th. Morgan Stanley began coverage on Ball in a research note on Monday, March 18th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $68.00 target price on the stock. TheStreet upgraded Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Friday, March 8th. Finally, Truist Financial reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $60.00 target price on shares of Ball in a research note on Friday, April 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $65.58.

Ball Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of BALL opened at $63.94 on Thursday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $64.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $57.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.54, a P/E/G ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.89. Ball Co. has a 1-year low of $42.81 and a 1-year high of $67.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96.

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

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.25%. Ball’s payout ratio is presently 35.71%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ball news, insider Daniel William Fisher acquired 3,869 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $64.56 per share, for a total transaction of $249,782.64. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 111,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

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.