Reliance, Inc. (RS) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.20 on March 21st

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, February 18th, RTT News reports. Shareholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This is an increase 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 increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Reliance has a dividend payout ratio of 24.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. 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 Up 3.3 %

Shares of NYSE RS traded up $9.63 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $303.25. 874,174 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 425,869. The company has a current ratio of 3.31, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.65 and a beta of 0.91. Reliance has a twelve month low of $256.98 and a twelve month high of $342.20. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $281.72 and a 200 day simple moving average of $289.07.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). Reliance had a net margin of 7.42% and a return on equity of 13.68%. The business had revenue of $3.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. As a group, equities analysts expect that Reliance will post 16.38 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $323.90, for a total value of $1,260,618.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 85,117 shares in the company, valued at $27,569,396.30. This represents a 4.37 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.69% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have commented on RS shares. Wolfe Research raised Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Reliance from $340.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 25th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Reliance in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price target for the company. Finally, KeyCorp lowered their price objective on Reliance from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $328.17.

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.