1,650 Shares in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Acquired by Erste Asset Management GmbH

Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new stake in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,650 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $445,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of RS. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in Reliance by 6,311.2% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $219,841,000 after acquiring an additional 803,730 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in 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 acquiring an additional 252,955 shares during the last quarter. Edge Capital Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $46,979,000. Woodward Diversified Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $21,015,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $20,640,000. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly 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 legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.69% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Reliance Stock Performance

Shares of RS stock opened at $283.15 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $286.94 and a 200 day moving average of $289.88. Reliance, Inc. has a 52 week low of $256.98 and a 52 week high of $342.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.34 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10.

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

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a $1.20 dividend. This is an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is 31.09%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on RS. Wolfe Research raised Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp increased their price objective on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Reliance in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective for the company. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $329.17.

Reliance 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.