Ball (NYSE:BALL) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.12 EPS

Ball (NYSE:BALL) announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday. The company reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.56 by $0.12, RTT News reports. The business had revenue of $2.87 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.23 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 23.81% and a net margin of 5.04%. Ball’s quarterly revenue was down 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.69 EPS.

Ball Stock Performance

NYSE BALL traded up $4.92 on Friday, reaching $70.37. The stock had a trading volume of 2,962,982 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,842,758. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $64.97 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.78. Ball has a 1-year low of $42.81 and a 1-year high of $70.75. The company has a market cap of $22.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.21 and a beta of 0.89.

Ball Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 3rd will be paid a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.14%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 3rd. Ball’s payout ratio is 35.71%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ball

In related news, insider Daniel William Fisher bought 3,869 shares of Ball stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 14th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the acquisition, the insider now owns 111,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,222,068.96. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on BALL. TheStreet raised Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Friday, March 8th. UBS Group started coverage on Ball in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. They set a “sell” rating and a $55.00 target price for the company. Wolfe Research started coverage on Ball in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Truist Financial reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $60.00 price objective on shares of Ball in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Ball from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $61.00 to $72.00 in a research report on Monday, March 4th. One 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, Ball currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $65.58.

Ball declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, April 24th that permits the company to repurchase 40,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.