Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Acquires 60 Shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 0.5% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 13,010 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after acquiring an additional 60 shares during the quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in Reliance were worth $3,639,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. lifted its stake in Reliance by 23.8% in the fourth quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. now owns 1,077 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $301,000 after purchasing an additional 207 shares during the last quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. lifted its stake in shares of Reliance by 16.8% in the 4th quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. now owns 10,262 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $2,870,000 after acquiring an additional 1,473 shares during the last quarter. CTC Alternative Strategies Ltd. purchased a new stake in Reliance during the 4th quarter valued at about $447,000. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new position in Reliance during the 4th quarter worth approximately $4,503,000. Finally, Perigon Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in Reliance by 32.2% in the 4th quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,011 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $283,000 after purchasing an additional 246 shares during the period. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Reliance from $295.00 to $355.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Reliance from $300.00 to $362.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Finally, Citigroup cut shares of Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $280.00 to $380.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Reliance has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $365.67.

Insider Transactions at Reliance

In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 42,346 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $318.97, for a total transaction of $13,507,103.62. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 84,534 shares in the company, valued at $26,963,809.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 42,346 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $318.97, for a total transaction of $13,507,103.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 84,534 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,963,809.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Arthur Ajemyan sold 3,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $322.95, for a total transaction of $968,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 15,577 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,030,592.15. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 85,996 shares of company stock valued at $27,603,878. Corporate insiders own 0.69% of the company’s stock.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of Reliance stock opened at $319.49 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $18.35 billion, a PE ratio of 14.13, a P/E/G ratio of 5.63 and a beta of 0.87. The business has a 50 day moving average of $324.38 and a 200 day moving average of $290.21. Reliance, Inc. has a 52 week low of $229.12 and a 52 week high of $342.20. The company has a quick ratio of 3.23, a current ratio of 5.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The industrial products company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.92 by $0.81. Reliance had a net margin of 9.02% and a return on equity of 17.53%. The firm had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.31 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $5.87 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Reliance, Inc. will post 19.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 8th were issued a dividend of $1.10 per share. This is an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.00. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.38%. Reliance’s dividend payout ratio is 19.46%.

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.