Royal Bank of Canada Cuts Ball (NYSE:BALL) Price Target to $75.00

Ball (NYSE:BALL) had its price target cut by Royal Bank of Canada from $77.00 to $75.00 in a research note published on Thursday, Benzinga reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the stock.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Ball from $61.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Baird R W raised Ball from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. UBS Group upped their target price on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $71.08.

Ball Stock Performance

NYSE:BALL opened at $67.25 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $65.10 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.19. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball has a twelve month low of $42.81 and a twelve month high of $71.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.06, a PEG ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 0.88.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.70 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $2.96 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.10 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 19.45% and a net margin of 32.79%. The company’s revenue was down 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.61 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Ball will post 3.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 3rd were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 3rd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.19%. Ball’s payout ratio is currently 6.02%.

Institutional Trading of Ball

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BALL. Raymond James & Associates grew its stake in Ball by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,720,859 shares of the company’s stock worth $116,864,000 after buying an additional 99,306 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of Ball by 35.7% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,064 shares of the company’s stock worth $140,000 after acquiring an additional 543 shares during the last quarter. Drake & Associates LLC increased its holdings in shares of Ball by 20.7% in the 3rd quarter. Drake & Associates LLC now owns 5,188 shares of the company’s stock worth $352,000 after acquiring an additional 888 shares during the period. Hengehold Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Ball in the 3rd quarter valued at about $211,000. Finally, IQ EQ FUND MANAGEMENT IRELAND Ltd lifted its position in Ball by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. IQ EQ FUND MANAGEMENT IRELAND Ltd now owns 57,579 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,910,000 after purchasing an additional 1,961 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.