Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.20

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, February 18th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a dividend of 1.20 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, March 21st. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10.

Reliance has increased its dividend payment by an average of 17.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 15 years. Reliance has a dividend payout ratio of 24.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Reliance to earn $18.12 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 26.5%.

Reliance Stock Down 1.5 %

Shares of NYSE RS opened at $284.59 on Wednesday. Reliance has a 12-month low of $256.98 and a 12-month high of $342.20. The firm has a market cap of $15.40 billion, a PE ratio of 18.26 and a beta of 0.91. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $284.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $289.90. 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). Reliance had a net margin of 6.33% and a return on equity of 11.87%. The business had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Reliance will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

RS has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on shares of Reliance in a report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their target price on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $329.17.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 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 position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.69% 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.