Welch & Forbes LLC Decreases Position in Ball Corporation $BALL

Welch & Forbes LLC reduced its position in shares of Ball Corporation (NYSE:BALL) by 32.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 160,551 shares of the company’s stock after selling 76,459 shares during the period. Welch & Forbes LLC owned 0.06% of Ball worth $9,005,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Brighton Jones LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ball by 41.2% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 5,245 shares of the company’s stock worth $289,000 after acquiring an additional 1,531 shares during the last quarter. Amalgamated Bank grew its holdings in shares of Ball by 1.7% during the first quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 58,244 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,033,000 after buying an additional 968 shares in the last quarter. Mather Group LLC. grew its holdings in shares of Ball by 28.1% during the first quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 3,599 shares of the company’s stock worth $187,000 after buying an additional 790 shares in the last quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. raised its position in shares of Ball by 7.5% in the first quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 6,828 shares of the company’s stock valued at $356,000 after buying an additional 475 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Ball by 2.7% in the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 36,084 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,879,000 after buying an additional 948 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

BALL has been the subject of several research reports. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Ball from $68.00 to $61.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 3rd. Bank of America restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $66.00 price target (down from $67.00) on shares of Ball in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on Ball from $54.00 to $48.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 15th. Citigroup cut their target price on Ball from $60.00 to $53.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, September 29th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Ball from $61.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 6th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $62.36.

Ball Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of Ball stock opened at $46.97 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $49.64 and a 200 day moving average of $52.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 1.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.34, a PEG ratio of 1.09 and a beta of 1.09. Ball Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $43.51 and a fifty-two week high of $64.80.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.10 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 16.81% and a net margin of 4.49%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.74 EPS. Ball has set its FY 2025 guidance at 3.550-3.650 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Ball Corporation will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, December 1st. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.7%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 41.45%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Chairman Daniel William Fisher sold 3,400 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $51.55, for a total value of $175,270.00. Following the transaction, the chairman directly owned 10,036 shares in the company, valued at approximately $517,355.80. This represents a 25.31% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

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.