OLD National Bancorp IN Has $3.52 Million Position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

OLD National Bancorp IN lessened its stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 1.6% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 61,175 shares of the company’s stock after selling 1,019 shares during the quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN’s holdings in Ball were worth $3,519,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. JGP Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Ball by 1.3% in 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 in the last quarter. Wealthsource Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Ball by 4.7% in 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 in the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co lifted its position in shares of Ball by 12.8% in 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 in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. lifted its position in shares of Ball by 4.5% in the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 5,916 shares of the company’s stock worth $294,000 after purchasing an additional 254 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators lifted its position in shares of Ball by 80.4% in the third quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 572 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 255 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BALL has been the topic of several analyst reports. Bank of America raised shares of Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Royal Bank of Canada raised shares of Ball from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $61.00 to $74.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Ball to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Ball in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. They set a “sell” rating and a $55.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Ball from $52.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

Ball Trading Up 0.7 %

BALL stock opened at $65.43 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a current ratio of 0.79. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $64.72 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.54. Ball Co. has a 52 week low of $42.81 and a 52 week high of $67.97. The company has a market capitalization of $20.65 billion, a PE ratio of 29.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.20 and a beta of 0.89.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $3.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.56 billion. Ball had a net margin of 5.04% and a return on equity of 23.81%. The business’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 business earned $0.44 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st were issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.22%. Ball’s payout ratio is 35.71%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Daniel William Fisher purchased 3,869 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $64.56 per share, for a total transaction of $249,782.64. Following the acquisition, the insider now owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at $7,222,068.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Company 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.