Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC Buys 403 Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC grew its stake in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 4.1% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 10,253 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 403 shares during the quarter. Alpine Woods Capital Investors LLC’s holdings in Reliance were worth $2,761,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of Reliance by 6,311.2% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $219,841,000 after purchasing an additional 803,730 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position 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 period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in shares of Reliance by 5.4% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 503,400 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $135,546,000 after purchasing an additional 25,750 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Reliance by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 397,453 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $107,018,000 after purchasing an additional 2,921 shares during the period. Finally, Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec grew its position in shares of Reliance by 7.3% in the 3rd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 296,033 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $85,616,000 after purchasing an additional 20,056 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Reliance

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 90,230 shares in the company, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Company insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Wolfe Research upgraded Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Reliance in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price target for the company. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $329.17.

Reliance Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE:RS opened at $279.03 on Friday. Reliance, Inc. has a twelve month low of $256.98 and a twelve month high of $342.20. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $286.39 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $289.93. The company has a market cap of $14.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.07 and a beta of 0.87.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share 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 firm had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. As a group, analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.72%. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is currently 31.09%.

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.