Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) has earned an average rating of “Hold” from the six research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $329.17.

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Wolfe Research upgraded Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp increased their target price on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th.

Reliance Stock Performance

Reliance stock opened at $262.12 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The stock has a market cap of $13.88 billion, a PE ratio of 16.98 and a beta of 0.83. Reliance has a 12-month low of $250.07 and a 12-month high of $341.89. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $286.62 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $290.31.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). The company had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. Reliance had a net margin of 6.33% and a return on equity of 11.87%. As a group, analysts expect that Reliance will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th were issued a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 7th. This is an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.83%. Reliance’s payout ratio is presently 31.09%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total value of $9,356,990.72. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Reliance

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of RS. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in shares of Reliance by 33,792.2% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 278,933 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $80,542,000 after acquiring an additional 278,110 shares in the last quarter. Chancellor Financial Group WB LP acquired a new stake in Reliance during the fourth quarter worth approximately $539,000. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its holdings in Reliance by 17.3% in the fourth quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 148,576 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $40,006,000 after purchasing an additional 21,863 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in Reliance by 168.5% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 28,409 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $7,650,000 after buying an additional 17,827 shares during the period. Finally, NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Reliance by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 6,638 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $1,787,000 after buying an additional 81 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

About Reliance

Reliance, Inc operates as a diversified metal solutions provider and the metals service center company in the United States, Canada, and internationally. The company distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including alloy, aluminum, brass, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty steel products; and provides metals processing services to general manufacturing, non-residential construction, transportation, aerospace, energy, electronics and semiconductor fabrication, and heavy industries.