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

Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 29th,RTT News reports. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 1.45%.

Ball has raised 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. Research 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 Stock Down 0.4 %

Ball stock traded down $0.24 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $55.35. 1,995,230 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,323,757. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.93. Ball has a 52-week low of $51.96 and a 52-week high of $71.32. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $56.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $61.37.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last posted 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. 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 analysts’ expectations of $3.13 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.83 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Ball will post 3.15 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Ball from $78.00 to $75.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an “underweight” rating and set a $49.00 price target (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. UBS Group raised shares of Ball from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $62.00 to $58.00 in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $68.17.

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.