Versor Investments LP Acquires New Shares in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Versor Investments LP bought a new position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 2,966 shares of the industrial products company’s stock, valued at approximately $799,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of RS. Quarry LP purchased a new position in Reliance in the third quarter worth about $41,000. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its stake in shares of Reliance by 157.8% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 214 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 131 shares during the period. Brooklyn Investment Group bought a new position in shares of Reliance in the third quarter worth about $78,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in shares of Reliance by 41.8% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 353 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $95,000 after buying an additional 104 shares during the period. Finally, Abound Wealth Management raised its stake in shares of Reliance by 35,700.0% in the fourth quarter. Abound Wealth Management now owns 358 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $96,000 after buying an additional 357 shares during the period. 79.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

RS has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wolfe Research raised Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp raised their price objective on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Reliance in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $341.00 price objective on the stock. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $329.17.

Reliance Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of RS opened at $297.36 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $283.62 and its 200 day moving average is $289.62. The company has a market capitalization of $16.09 billion, a PE ratio of 19.26 and a beta of 0.91. Reliance, Inc. has a 12-month low of $256.98 and a 12-month high of $342.20. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last issued its 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 6.33% and a return on equity of 11.87%. The business had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. Research analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a $1.20 dividend. This is an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.61%. Reliance’s payout ratio is presently 31.09%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total value of $9,356,990.72. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,115,919.60. The trade was a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

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.