Reliance, Inc. (RS) To Go Ex-Dividend on August 16th

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, July 25th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 16th will be paid a dividend of 1.10 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, August 30th. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 16th.

Reliance has increased 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 dividend payout ratio of 23.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Reliance to earn $18.16 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 24.2%.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of RS opened at $304.05 on Friday. Reliance has a 1-year low of $237.14 and a 1-year high of $342.20. The stock has a market cap of $17.46 billion, a PE ratio of 14.20 and a beta of 0.86. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $291.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $302.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 5.02 and a quick ratio of 3.21.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 25th. The industrial products company reported $4.65 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.73 by ($0.08). The business had revenue of $3.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. Reliance had a net margin of 7.99% and a return on equity of 14.73%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $6.49 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Reliance will post 18.63 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

RS has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America decreased their price target on shares of Reliance from $340.00 to $335.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Reliance from $355.00 to $345.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 26th. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Reliance from a “peer perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $262.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Friday. KeyCorp reduced their price target on shares of Reliance from $341.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 3rd. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Reliance has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $329.40.

Insider Activity at Reliance

In related news, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.04, for a total value of $1,450,200.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 44,042 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,773,941.68. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Reliance news, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $290.04, for a total transaction of $1,450,200.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 44,042 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,773,941.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Stephen Paul Koch sold 20,421 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $295.38, for a total transaction of $6,031,954.98. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 7,552 shares in the company, valued at $2,230,709.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 40,421 shares of company stock valued at $11,866,855. Insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

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.