DAVENPORT & Co LLC Buys 9,863 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

DAVENPORT & Co LLC increased its stake in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 23.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 52,203 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,863 shares during the quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC’s holdings in Ball were worth $3,009,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Quarry LP increased its position in shares of Ball by 446.3% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 448 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 366 shares during the last quarter. Resurgent Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Ball during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Covington Capital Management purchased a new position in Ball during the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators boosted its holdings in Ball by 80.4% during the 3rd quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 572 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 255 shares during the period. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. purchased a new position in Ball during the 3rd quarter valued at $29,000. Institutional investors own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Ball Trading Down 1.1 %

BALL opened at $66.00 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $20.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.46, a PEG ratio of 4.36 and a beta of 0.89. 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 Co. has a 12 month low of $42.81 and a 12 month high of $67.97. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $62.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $56.09.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $3.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.56 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 23.81% and a net margin of 5.04%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.44 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Ball Co. will post 3.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st were given a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.21%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 29th. Ball’s payout ratio is 35.71%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on BALL shares. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Ball from $52.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Ball to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. UBS Group started coverage on Ball in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. They set a “sell” rating and a $55.00 price objective for the company. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on Ball from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a report on Monday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

Insider Transactions at Ball

In related news, insider Daniel William Fisher purchased 3,869 shares of Ball stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 14th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

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.