Raymond James Financial Inc. Takes Position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 76,655 shares of the industrial products company's stock, valued at approximately $20,640,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. owned approximately 0.14% of Reliance as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of RS. APG Asset Management N.V. boosted its stake in shares of Reliance by 2.1% during the fourth quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 8,557 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $2,225,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its position in Reliance by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 10,122 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $2,725,000 after acquiring an additional 616 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Reliance by 25.1% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 507,618 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $136,681,000 after acquiring an additional 101,733 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Reliance by 22.4% during the 4th quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 73,902 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $19,899,000 after purchasing an additional 13,506 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at about $4,472,000. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The stock was 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 owns 90,230 shares in the company, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.35% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

RS has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Reliance from an "underperform" rating to a "peer perform" rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Reliance currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $319.00.

Reliance Stock Up 0.7 %

Shares of RS traded up $1.89 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $281.98. 186,110 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 401,510. The business has a 50 day moving average of $284.27 and a 200 day moving average of $289.57. The company has a market capitalization of $14.91 billion, a PE ratio of 18.28 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 3.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. Reliance, Inc. has a 1-year low of $250.07 and a 1-year high of $326.87.

Reliance (NYSE:RS - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $2.74 by ($0.52). The company 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%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th were given a $1.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 7th. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. This is a positive change from Reliance's previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. Reliance's dividend payout ratio is currently 31.09%.

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.