Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) CEO Karla R. Lewis Sells 31,136 Shares of Stock

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was 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 owns 90,230 shares in the company, valued at $27,115,919.60. This trade represents a 25.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Reliance Stock Down 1.0 %

RS stock opened at $296.22 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $282.48 and a 200-day moving average of $289.55. Reliance, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $256.98 and a fifty-two week high of $342.20. The company has a market capitalization of $16.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.19 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 3.21.

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

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a $1.20 dividend. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s payout ratio is currently 31.09%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Reliance

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Reliance by 9.4% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 3,709,737 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $998,886,000 after purchasing an additional 319,576 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in Reliance by 10.4% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,479,542 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $398,381,000 after purchasing an additional 138,866 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in Reliance by 15.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,382,916 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $372,364,000 after purchasing an additional 185,873 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in Reliance by 6,311.2% during the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $219,841,000 after buying an additional 803,730 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Reliance by 53.5% during the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $195,402,000 after buying an additional 252,955 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on RS. KeyCorp raised their target price on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Reliance in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective on the stock. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Reliance currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $329.17.

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.