Ball Co. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NYSE:BALL)

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, April 24th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share on Monday, June 17th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.23%.

Ball has raised its dividend by an average of 10.1% per year over the last three years. Ball has a payout ratio of 23.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ball to earn $3.48 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 23.0%.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BALL opened at $65.18 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $64.90 and its 200 day moving average is $57.73. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. Ball has a 52 week low of $42.81 and a 52 week high of $67.97. The stock has a market cap of $20.57 billion, a PE ratio of 29.10, a PEG ratio of 4.23 and a beta of 0.89.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.01. Ball had a return on equity of 23.81% and a net margin of 5.04%. The company had revenue of $3.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.56 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.44 EPS. Ball’s quarterly revenue was down 4.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Ball will post 3.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, April 24th that permits the company to buyback 40,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Ball

In other Ball news, insider Daniel William Fisher purchased 3,869 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 14th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now directly owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.81% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BALL has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Barclays reaffirmed 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. Truist Financial reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $60.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Royal Bank of Canada upgraded Ball from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $61.00 to $74.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of Ball in a report on Monday, March 18th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $68.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a report on Monday, March 4th. One investment 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. According to data from MarketBeat, Ball has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

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.