7,416 Shares in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) Purchased by Copley Financial Group Inc.

Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 7,416 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $504,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of BALL. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Ball by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,954,876 shares of the company’s stock valued at $453,144,000 after purchasing an additional 309,587 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 15.4% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock valued at $300,065,000 after buying an additional 588,282 shares during the period. Mirova US LLC boosted its position in Ball by 0.5% during the second quarter. Mirova US LLC now owns 2,495,497 shares of the company’s stock worth $149,780,000 after acquiring an additional 13,320 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Ball by 7.7% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,414,615 shares of the company’s stock worth $144,951,000 after acquiring an additional 171,924 shares during the period. Finally, Raymond James & Associates raised its holdings in Ball by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,720,859 shares of the company’s stock valued at $116,864,000 after acquiring an additional 99,306 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Ball Price Performance

BALL stock traded down $0.21 on Friday, hitting $57.78. 171,781 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,830,852. The company has a current ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market cap of $17.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.37, a P/E/G ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.91. Ball Co. has a 1-year low of $54.06 and a 1-year high of $71.32. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $62.20 and a 200-day moving average of $63.45.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $3.08 billion during 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 company’s revenue was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.83 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Ball Co. will post 3.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company 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 $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.38%. 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.