Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Receives $71.25 Consensus Target Price from Analysts

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) has earned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the fourteen research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation, six have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $71.08.

BALL has been the topic of a number of research reports. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Ball from $77.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Citigroup lifted their target price on Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Baird R W raised Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 14th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Jessup Wealth Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Ball in the 1st quarter valued at about $7,479,000. TD Asset Management Inc increased its position in Ball by 4.2% in the 1st quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,453,639 shares of the company’s stock valued at $97,917,000 after buying an additional 58,863 shares in the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Ball in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,973,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Ball by 306.6% in the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 31,750 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,906,000 after buying an additional 23,941 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Addenda Capital Inc. increased its position in Ball by 7.3% in the 2nd quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. now owns 153,464 shares of the company’s stock valued at $9,211,000 after buying an additional 10,427 shares in the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ball Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of BALL stock opened at $65.48 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.93, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88. Ball has a twelve month low of $42.81 and a twelve month high of $71.32. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $65.24 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.17.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $2.96 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.10 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 19.45% and a net margin of 32.79%. Ball’s quarterly revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.61 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Ball will post 3.12 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.