Ball Co. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.20 (NYSE:BALL)

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 29th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd.

Ball has increased its dividend by an average of 4.6% annually over the last three years. Ball has a payout ratio of 20.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Ball to earn $3.55 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.5%.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of BALL stock opened at $56.23 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. Ball has a 12 month low of $51.96 and a 12 month high of $71.32. The firm has a market cap of $16.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.24, a PEG ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.93. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $56.77 and a 200 day moving average price of $61.33.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $3.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.13 billion. Ball had a net margin of 34.05% and a return on equity of 17.46%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.83 EPS. Research analysts expect that Ball will post 3.15 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on BALL shares. Wells Fargo & Company restated an “underweight” rating and set a $49.00 target price (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 6th. UBS Group raised shares of Ball from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $62.00 to $58.00 in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Mizuho raised shares of Ball from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $67.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $75.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a research report on Monday, November 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $68.17.

Ball announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, January 29th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to repurchase up to 24.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.