Ball (NYSE:BALL) Announces Stock Buyback Program

Ball (NYSE:BALL) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, April 24th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback 40,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on BALL shares. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Ball from $52.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Ball to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $61.00 to $72.00 in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upgraded shares of Ball from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $61.00 to $74.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ball currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:BALL opened at $65.45 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $64.97 and its 200-day moving average price is $57.78. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a PEG ratio of 4.23 and a beta of 0.89. Ball has a one year low of $42.81 and a one year high of $67.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.54.

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

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 3rd will be issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.22%. Ball’s payout ratio is 35.71%.

Insider Transactions at Ball

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

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.