First Trust Advisors LP Has $372.36 Million Stock Position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 15.5% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,382,916 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after purchasing an additional 185,873 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP’s holdings in Reliance were worth $372,364,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Forum Financial Management LP raised its position in Reliance by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Forum Financial Management LP now owns 1,619 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $436,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Farringdon Capital Ltd. purchased a new position in Reliance during the fourth quarter worth about $286,000. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in Reliance by 142.6% in the 4th quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 1,548 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $417,000 after buying an additional 910 shares during the last quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Reliance by 19.2% in the 4th quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 1,897 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $511,000 after buying an additional 305 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board grew its holdings in shares of Reliance by 46.8% in the fourth quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 8,543 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $2,300,000 after acquiring an additional 2,724 shares in the last quarter. 79.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Reliance news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were 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 directly owns 90,230 shares in the company, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.35% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Reliance Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE RS opened at $276.97 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $284.80 and its 200-day moving average price is $289.61. Reliance, Inc. has a one year low of $250.07 and a one year high of $326.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.65 billion, a PE ratio of 17.94 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 3.21 and a quick ratio of 1.58.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.74 by ($0.52). The business had revenue of $3.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.04 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th were paid a dividend of $1.20 per share. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.73%. This is a positive change from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s payout ratio is presently 31.09%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have weighed in on RS shares. KeyCorp boosted 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 raised shares of Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $319.00.

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.