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

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, February 18th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be given 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 1.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10.

Reliance has increased its dividend by an average of 17.0% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Reliance has a dividend payout ratio of 24.1% meaning 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 Trading Up 3.3 %

Shares of NYSE:RS traded up $9.63 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $303.25. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 874,174 shares, compared to its average volume of 425,869. Reliance has a 1 year low of $256.98 and a 1 year high of $342.20. The firm has a market cap of $16.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.65 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $281.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $289.07.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.74 by ($0.52). The company had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 13.68% and a net margin of 7.42%. Research analysts forecast that Reliance will post 16.38 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Reliance

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 3,892 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 85,117 shares of the company’s stock, 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 document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently weighed in on RS. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Reliance from $340.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 25th. KeyCorp cut their price objective on shares of Reliance from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, 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. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average 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.