Wealth Alliance Trims Holdings in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Wealth Alliance cut its stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 9.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,572 shares of the company’s stock after selling 455 shares during the quarter. Wealth Alliance’s holdings in Ball were worth $263,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Quilter Plc purchased a new position in Ball during the first quarter worth about $401,172,000. Quarry LP grew its position in Ball by 446.3% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 448 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 366 shares in the last quarter. Tyler Stone Wealth Management purchased a new position in Ball during the second quarter worth about $29,000. Resurgent Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Ball during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Finally, Covington Capital Management purchased a new position in Ball during the third quarter worth about $26,000. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ball

In other Ball news, insider Daniel William Fisher purchased 3,869 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 111,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.81% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Ball Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE BALL opened at $64.35 on Friday. Ball Co. has a 1-year low of $42.81 and a 1-year high of $67.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $64.51 and a 200-day moving average of $57.19. The firm has a market cap of $20.31 billion, a PE ratio of 28.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.89.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 analyst estimates of $3.56 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.44 EPS. Ball’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.11 EPS for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.24%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. Ball’s payout ratio is 35.71%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on BALL shares. Barclays restated an “equal weight” rating and set a $71.00 target price (up from $66.00) on shares of Ball in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on Ball in a research note on Friday, March 1st. They set a “peer perform” rating for the company. TheStreet raised Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Friday, March 8th. Bank of America raised Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on Ball from $69.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ball currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

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.