Boston Trust Walden Corp Boosts Position in Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL)

Boston Trust Walden Corp boosted its position in shares of Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) by 5.8% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 229,173 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,665 shares during the quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp’s holdings in Ball were worth $11,933,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State of Alaska Department of Revenue grew its holdings in Ball by 2.6% during the first quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 34,916 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,818,000 after purchasing an additional 890 shares during the period. NBT Bank N A NY grew its holdings in Ball by 183.2% during the first quarter. NBT Bank N A NY now owns 6,843 shares of the company’s stock valued at $356,000 after purchasing an additional 4,427 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings in Ball by 20.2% during the first quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 139,769 shares of the company’s stock valued at $7,278,000 after purchasing an additional 23,516 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its holdings in Ball by 8.9% during the first quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 545,872 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,424,000 after purchasing an additional 44,764 shares during the period. Finally, Exchange Traded Concepts LLC grew its holdings in Ball by 11.7% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 2,938 shares of the company’s stock valued at $153,000 after purchasing an additional 307 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BALL has been the subject of several recent research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on Ball from $62.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, May 8th. Truist Financial cut their price target on Ball from $65.00 to $58.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Ball from $63.00 to $58.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. Barclays lowered their price objective on Ball from $61.00 to $57.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 14th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price objective on Ball from $55.00 to $54.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ball presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.00.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of Ball stock opened at $55.86 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.10. The company has a market capitalization of $15.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.25, a PEG ratio of 1.50 and a beta of 1.08. Ball Corporation has a 52 week low of $43.51 and a 52 week high of $68.12. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $52.19 and its 200-day simple moving average is $52.76.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The company reported $0.76 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.69 by $0.07. Ball had a return on equity of 15.41% and a net margin of 4.18%. The company had revenue of $3.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.91 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Ball Corporation will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 16th. Investors of record on Monday, June 2nd were paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 2nd. Ball’s payout ratio is presently 47.62%.

Ball 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.