Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. Increases Stake in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. increased its position in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) by 23.8% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,077 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after buying an additional 207 shares during the period. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Reliance were worth $301,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in RS. BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in Reliance by 14.5% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 6,453,558 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,656,886,000 after purchasing an additional 815,429 shares during the last quarter. CI Private Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Reliance in the fourth quarter valued at about $82,101,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Reliance in the fourth quarter worth about $78,366,000. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Reliance by 16.4% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,549,898 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $467,524,000 after acquiring an additional 359,364 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in Reliance by 121.1% in the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 515,735 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $94,560,000 after acquiring an additional 282,481 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on RS. Citigroup downgraded Reliance from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $280.00 to $380.00 in a report on Thursday, April 11th. KeyCorp raised their price target on Reliance from $300.00 to $362.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 16th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Reliance from $295.00 to $355.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Reliance currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $365.67.

Reliance Trading Down 0.2 %

Reliance stock opened at $322.37 on Thursday. 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, Inc. has a 52 week low of $229.12 and a 52 week high of $342.20. The company has a market capitalization of $18.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.69 and a beta of 0.87. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $323.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $289.34.

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

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th were given a $1.10 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 7th. This is a boost from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.00. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.36%. Reliance’s payout ratio is 19.46%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 42,346 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $318.97, for a total value of $13,507,103.62. Following the completion of 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, CFO Arthur Ajemyan sold 3,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 directly owns 15,577 shares in the company, valued at $5,030,592.15. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 42,346 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $318.97, for a total value of $13,507,103.62. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 84,534 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,963,809.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 85,996 shares of company stock worth $27,603,878 over the last three months. 0.69% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.