Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Shares Sold by Pitcairn Co.

Pitcairn Co. cut its stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 19.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,974 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after selling 474 shares during the period. Pitcairn Co.’s holdings in Reliance were worth $532,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of RS. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in shares of Reliance by 10.4% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,479,542 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $398,381,000 after purchasing an additional 138,866 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Reliance by 6,311.2% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $219,841,000 after buying an additional 803,730 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in Reliance by 53.5% during the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $195,402,000 after buying an additional 252,955 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners lifted its stake in Reliance by 7.6% during the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 716,280 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $192,894,000 after acquiring an additional 50,528 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Reliance in the 4th quarter valued at $186,255,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on RS shares. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 24th. Wolfe Research raised Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $329.17.

Insider Activity at Reliance

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 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 can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.69% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Reliance Stock Down 4.0 %

RS opened at $264.32 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $288.35 and a two-hundred day moving average of $290.70. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.12 and a beta of 0.87. Reliance, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $256.98 and a fifty-two week high of $342.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 3.21.

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). The business had revenue of $3.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. On average, research analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th were given a dividend of $1.20 per share. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.82%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.