abrdn plc Acquires 77,708 Shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL)

abrdn plc boosted its position in shares of Ball Co. (NYSE:BALL) by 22.5% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 422,399 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 77,708 shares during the period. abrdn plc owned about 0.13% of Ball worth $24,296,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in BALL. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators raised its position in Ball by 80.4% in the 3rd quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 572 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 255 shares during the period. NBC Securities Inc. purchased a new stake in Ball in the 3rd quarter worth about $29,000. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in Ball in the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. Friedenthal Financial bought a new position in Ball in the 4th quarter worth about $43,000. Finally, Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. bought a new position in Ball in the 4th quarter worth about $43,000. 86.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on BALL. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of Ball from $69.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of Ball in a research note on Monday, March 18th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $68.00 target price on the stock. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Ball to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. TheStreet upgraded shares of Ball from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Friday, March 8th. Finally, UBS Group started coverage on shares of Ball in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. They issued a “sell” rating and a $55.00 target price on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ball presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $65.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ball

In related news, insider Daniel William Fisher purchased 3,869 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $64.56 per share, with a total value of $249,782.64. Following the completion of 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 SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.81% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Ball Price Performance

Shares of BALL opened at $65.50 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $20.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.20 and a beta of 0.89. Ball Co. has a twelve month low of $42.81 and a twelve month high of $67.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. The company has a 50 day moving average of $64.84 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.68.

Ball (NYSE:BALL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $3.40 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.56 billion. Ball had a net margin of 5.04% and a return on equity of 23.81%. Ball’s revenue was down 4.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.44 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Ball Co. will post 3.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ball 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.