Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas Acquires Shares of 17,596 Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm acquired 17,596 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,195,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Inspire Trust Co. N.A. grew its position in Ball by 20.0% during the 3rd quarter. Inspire Trust Co. N.A. now owns 48,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,260,000 after purchasing an additional 8,000 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 4.7% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,954,876 shares of the company’s stock worth $453,144,000 after buying an additional 309,587 shares during the last quarter. Tidal Investments LLC grew its holdings in Ball by 3.7% during the third quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 33,094 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,247,000 after acquiring an additional 1,182 shares during the period. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB acquired a new stake in Ball during the third quarter worth about $510,000. Finally, SkyView Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in Ball by 4.5% during the third quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC now owns 9,450 shares of the company’s stock valued at $642,000 after acquiring an additional 411 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Mizuho raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Ball from $63.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Ball from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $69.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $70.75.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of Ball stock opened at $58.24 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.39, a PEG ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.91. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $62.05 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $63.37. Ball Co. has a 12 month low of $54.06 and a 12 month high of $71.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 0.82.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Ball had a return on equity of 17.46% and a net margin of 34.05%. The company had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.83 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Ball Co. will post 3.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.37%. Ball’s payout ratio is presently 6.03%.

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.