Ball (NYSE:BALL) to Repurchase 40,000,000 Stock

Ball (NYSE:BALL) announced that its board has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, April 24th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase 40,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on BALL shares. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of Ball in a report on Monday, March 18th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $68.00 target price for the company. Truist Financial reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $60.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a report on Friday, April 12th. TheStreet upgraded shares of Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Friday, March 8th. Barclays reiterated an “equal weight” rating and set a $71.00 price objective (up previously from $66.00) on shares of Ball in a report on Thursday, April 4th. Finally, Citigroup started coverage on shares of Ball in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $70.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.58.

Ball Stock Up 6.7 %

NYSE:BALL opened at $69.82 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $22.04 billion, a PE ratio of 31.17, a P/E/G ratio of 4.21 and a beta of 0.89. Ball has a twelve month low of $42.81 and a twelve month high of $70.75. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. The company’s 50 day moving average is $65.12 and its two-hundred day moving average is $57.95.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, April 26th. The company reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.56 by $0.12. Ball had a net margin of 5.04% and a return on equity of 23.81%. The business had revenue of $2.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.23 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.69 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 17.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Ball will post 3.09 EPS for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Investors of record on Monday, June 3rd will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 3rd. Ball’s dividend payout ratio is currently 35.71%.

Insider Activity at Ball

In other news, insider Daniel William Fisher bought 3,869 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $64.56 per share, for a total transaction of $249,782.64. Following the purchase, the insider now directly owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Ball Company Profile

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.