Shares of Ball Corporation (BLL) reached a new 52-week high of $63.53 on Jul 9 and eventually closed trade a tad lower at $63.44. The stock price appreciation continues to be fueled by expected benefits from product launches and expansion in emerging markets.
Ball Corporation has delivered a solid one-year return of about 46.7% and year-to-date return of 23.4%, outperforming the S&P 500. Average volume of shares traded over the last three months is approximately 971K.
This Broomfield, CO-based company is the largest manufacturer of beverage cans in North America, with a market cap of $8.84 billion and long-term estimated earnings per share growth rate of 11.07%. The company has outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the past four trailing quarters, with an average surprise of 11.41%.
Strengths of Ball Corporation
On Jul 1, Ball Corporation announced that the International Metal Decorators Association has recognized two of its metal packaging designs -- Meguiar's Hot Shine Tire Coating aerosol can and Team Realtree Outdoor Energy Blaze Orange Tea two-piece can -- in the "Excellence in Quality" awards competition, which honors the best in metal decorating at its 2014 conference in Bloomingdale, IL.
Shares of Ball Corp. started gaining since May 1 after the company reported first-quarter 2014 adjusted earnings of 81 cents per share, which easily beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 68 cents. Moreover, the reported figure surged 40% year over year, aided by global packaging volume growth and manufacturing efficiencies. The company affirmed its free cash flow of $550 million for full-year 2014 and maintained the long-term diluted earnings per share growth goal of 10–15%.
The shares gained further support as Ball Corp., on May 19, announced its intention to expand in Southeast Asia by building a one-line beverage can manufacturing plant in Myanmar. The new plant will supply beverage containers to Coca-Cola Pinya Beverages, a joint venture between The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) and two other customers. The Myanmar plant, which is expected to come online in mid-2015, will help the company to capitalize on the growing demand for beverage containers in a relatively fast growing market.
On Jun 5, Ball Corporation announced that it has been ranked 3rd among the 500 largest U.S. companies by Newsweek. The Newsweek Green Rankings which are considered one of the world's most recognized assessments of corporate environmental impact, evaluates the U.S. companies by market capitalization and rates them based on performance on key performance indicators, including: energy productivity; greenhouse gas emissions; water and waste; reputation; sustainability pay link and board committee; and third party verification of environmental metrics.