Edgestream Partners L.P. Acquires Shares of 15,806 Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Edgestream Partners L.P. acquired a new stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 15,806 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,073,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC grew its stake in Ball by 15.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock valued at $300,065,000 after acquiring an additional 588,282 shares during the period. Mirova US LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Ball by 0.5% in the second quarter. Mirova US LLC now owns 2,495,497 shares of the company’s stock valued at $149,780,000 after purchasing an additional 13,320 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Ball by 7.7% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,414,615 shares of the company’s stock valued at $144,951,000 after purchasing an additional 171,924 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its holdings in shares of Ball by 6.1% in the third quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,720,859 shares of the company’s stock valued at $116,864,000 after purchasing an additional 99,306 shares in the last quarter. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in shares of Ball by 458.6% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 1,018,648 shares of the company’s stock valued at $61,139,000 after purchasing an additional 836,293 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird upgraded Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $70.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. 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 report on Wednesday, September 4th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $75.00 target price on shares of Ball in a report on Monday, November 4th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on Ball from $63.00 to $61.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $70.75.

Ball Stock Performance

Shares of BALL opened at $61.08 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $18.23 billion, a PE ratio of 4.61, a PEG ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.91. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $63.34 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $63.91. 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 Co. has a 1 year low of $54.06 and a 1 year high of $71.32.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.13 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 17.46% and a net margin of 34.05%. The business’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.83 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.15 EPS for the current year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be given a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.31%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 2nd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.