Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC Invests $202,000 in Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 2,970 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $202,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in BALL. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Ball by 15.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,418,570 shares of the company’s stock worth $300,065,000 after acquiring an additional 588,282 shares during the last quarter. Mirova US LLC increased its stake in Ball by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Mirova US LLC now owns 2,495,497 shares of the company’s stock worth $149,780,000 after purchasing an additional 13,320 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Ball by 7.7% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,414,615 shares of the company’s stock valued at $144,951,000 after buying an additional 171,924 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates increased its position 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 period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in 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 acquiring an additional 836,293 shares during the last quarter. 86.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Mizuho lowered their price target on Ball from $69.00 to $67.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered 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. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 price target on shares of Ball in a research note on Monday, November 4th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Ball from $56.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on Ball from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $70.75.

Ball Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of BALL opened at $62.83 on Tuesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $63.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $64.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.91. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Ball had a return on equity of 17.46% and a net margin of 34.05%. The business had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.83 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Ball Co. will post 3.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd will be paid a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 2nd. Ball’s dividend 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.