Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Declares Dividend Increase – $1.20 Per Share

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 19th,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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.63%. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10.

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 24.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Reliance to earn $16.98 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 25.9%.

Reliance Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of RS stock opened at $293.77 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 3.31, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Reliance has a 12 month low of $256.98 and a 12 month high of $342.20. The stock has a market cap of $15.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.13 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $281.72 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $289.07.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a return on equity of 13.68% and a net margin of 7.42%. On average, research analysts expect that Reliance will post 16.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on RS shares. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Reliance from $340.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 25th. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Reliance in a report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price target on the stock. KeyCorp reduced their price objective on shares of Reliance from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. 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 company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $328.17.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $323.90, for a total value of $1,260,618.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 85,117 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,569,396.30. The trade was a 4.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.69% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.