Everence Capital Management Inc. Invests $302,000 in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Everence Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 1,120 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $302,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in RS. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its position in shares of Reliance by 18.1% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 823 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $222,000 after buying an additional 126 shares during the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its stake in Reliance by 157.8% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 214 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $58,000 after acquiring an additional 131 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in Reliance by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 285,871 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $82,677,000 after purchasing an additional 1,499 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in Reliance by 19.7% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 472,730 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $136,718,000 after purchasing an additional 77,937 shares during the period. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 4.5% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 112,065 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $32,909,000 after purchasing an additional 4,821 shares during the last quarter. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on RS. KeyCorp reduced their target price on shares of Reliance from $335.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Reliance in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 target price on the stock. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Reliance from $340.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Reliance currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $328.83.

Reliance Stock Down 0.3 %

NYSE RS opened at $270.57 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 3.31, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The company has a market cap of $14.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.86 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a 50 day moving average of $296.94 and a 200-day moving average of $290.37. Reliance, Inc. has a 1-year low of $256.98 and a 1-year high of $342.20.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 24th. The industrial products company reported $3.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.66 by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $3.42 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.38 billion. Reliance had a net margin of 7.42% and a return on equity of 13.68%. Reliance’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $5.00 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 22nd were paid a dividend of $1.10 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 22nd. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. Reliance’s payout ratio is 24.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Reliance

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $323.90, for a total transaction of $1,260,618.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 85,117 shares in the company, valued at $27,569,396.30. This represents a 4.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Mark V. Kaminski sold 5,000 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $298.01, for a total value of $1,490,050.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,724 shares of company stock valued at $6,856,500 in the last ninety days. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.