Brokerages Set Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Target Price at $329.17

Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) have received an average rating of “Hold” from the six brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $329.17.

RS has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wolfe Research raised Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp boosted their price target on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 24th.

Reliance Trading Down 4.0 %

Shares of RS stock opened at $264.32 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. Reliance has a 12-month low of $256.98 and a 12-month high of $342.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.12 and a beta of 0.87. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $288.35 and its 200 day moving average is $290.63.

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

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th were paid a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.82%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is presently 31.09%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Reliance

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,115,919.60. This trade represents a 25.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Reliance

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of RS. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of 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. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Reliance during the fourth quarter worth approximately $186,255,000. American Century Companies Inc. increased its stake in Reliance by 1,127.9% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 426,986 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $114,971,000 after acquiring an additional 392,213 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in Reliance by 9.4% during 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 during the period. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Reliance by 53.5% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $195,402,000 after purchasing an additional 252,955 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Company Profile

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.