Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Plans $1.10 Quarterly Dividend

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 23rd, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, May 24th will be given a dividend of 1.10 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, June 7th. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.46%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 23rd.

Reliance has raised its dividend by an average of 17.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Reliance has a payout ratio of 22.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Reliance to earn $18.68 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 23.6%.

Reliance Stock Down 0.9 %

Reliance stock opened at $300.51 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.21, a current ratio of 5.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The company has a market capitalization of $17.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.04, a P/E/G ratio of 5.31 and a beta of 0.92. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $314.89 and a 200-day moving average price of $296.76. Reliance has a twelve month low of $229.12 and a twelve month high of $342.20.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 25th. The industrial products company reported $5.30 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $5.51 by ($0.21). Reliance had a return on equity of 16.26% and a net margin of 8.67%. The firm had revenue of $3.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.76 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $6.37 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 8.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Reliance will post 19.63 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Reliance

In related news, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 40,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.95, for a total value of $12,918,000.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 54,042 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,452,863.90. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 40,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.95, for a total value of $12,918,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 54,042 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,452,863.90. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Arthur Ajemyan sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.95, for a total transaction of $968,850.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 15,577 shares in the company, valued at $5,030,592.15. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 63,000 shares of company stock worth $19,721,750 in the last three months. 0.69% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Citigroup lowered shares of Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $280.00 to $380.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. KeyCorp raised their price target on shares of Reliance from $300.00 to $362.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 16th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Reliance from $355.00 to $345.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 26th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 15th.

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.