Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Announces $1.10 Quarterly Dividend

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, July 25th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 16th.

Reliance has raised its dividend payment by an average of 17.0% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Reliance has a payout ratio of 23.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities 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 stock opened at $304.05 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $291.32 and its 200-day moving average is $302.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 3.21 and a current ratio of 5.02. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.46 billion, a PE ratio of 14.20 and a beta of 0.86. Reliance has a 52 week low of $237.14 and a 52 week high of $342.20.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The industrial products company reported $4.65 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $4.73 by ($0.08). The business had revenue of $3.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.64 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 14.73% and a net margin of 7.99%. Reliance’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $6.49 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Reliance will post 18.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

RS has been the topic of several recent research reports. Bank of America decreased their price target on Reliance from $340.00 to $335.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. Wolfe Research cut Reliance from a “peer perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $262.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Friday. KeyCorp decreased their price target on Reliance from $341.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 3rd. Citigroup lowered Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the company from $280.00 to $380.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Reliance from $355.00 to $345.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $329.40.

Insider Buying and Selling at Reliance

In other news, 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 owns 7,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,230,709.76. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, 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 owns 7,552 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,230,709.76. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 5,000 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 44,042 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,773,941.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 40,421 shares of company stock valued at $11,866,855. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.