Plato Investment Management Ltd Has $246,000 Position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Plato Investment Management Ltd increased its holdings in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 14.3% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 910 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 114 shares during the quarter. Plato Investment Management Ltd’s holdings in Reliance were worth $246,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Reliance by 0.3% during the third quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 19,578 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $5,662,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the period. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. raised its position in Reliance by 113.4% during the 3rd quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 7,666 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,217,000 after purchasing an additional 4,073 shares during the last quarter. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Reliance during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,025,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Reliance by 19.7% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 472,730 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $136,718,000 after buying an additional 77,937 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Olympiad Research LP bought a new stake in shares of Reliance in the 3rd quarter valued at about $285,000. 79.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Reliance

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Trading Down 2.8 %

NYSE RS opened at $281.01 on Wednesday. Reliance, Inc. has a one year low of $256.98 and a one year high of $342.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 1.58. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $284.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of $289.90. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.20 and a beta of 0.91.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced 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 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. The company had revenue of $3.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.04 billion. Research analysts expect that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a dividend of $1.20 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.71%. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is currently 31.09%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

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.