Stock Buyback Plan Declared by Ball (NYSE:BALL)

Ball (NYSE:BALL) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, January 29th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $4.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase up to 24.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have weighed in on BALL. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 target price on shares of Ball in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $59.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 6th. UBS Group raised Ball from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $62.00 to $58.00 in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on Ball from $78.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and issued a $49.00 price target (down previously from $56.00) on shares of Ball in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Ball presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $68.17.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BALL traded down $0.24 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $55.35. 1,995,230 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,323,757. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $56.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $61.37. The company has a market capitalization of $16.52 billion, a P/E 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 company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its quarterly 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 business had revenue of $3.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.13 billion. Ball had a return on equity of 17.46% and a net margin of 34.05%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.83 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Ball will post 3.15 EPS for the current year.

Ball Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be issued a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.45%. Ball’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.