Short Interest in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) Declines By 43.7%

Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS) was the target of a significant drop in short interest in the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 776,800 shares, a drop of 43.7% from the March 15th total of 1,380,000 shares. Approximately 1.5% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 474,100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.6 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. KeyCorp lifted their price objective on Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 24th. Wolfe Research upgraded Reliance from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Reliance has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $319.00.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of RS stock opened at $276.85 on Wednesday. Reliance has a 52 week low of $250.07 and a 52 week high of $326.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.64 billion, a PE ratio of 17.93 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a current ratio of 3.21. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $285.52 and its 200-day moving average is $289.89.

Reliance (NYSE:RS) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The industrial products company reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.04 billion. Equities research analysts expect that Reliance will post 16.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared 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 an increase from Reliance’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.10. The ex-dividend date was Friday, March 7th. Reliance’s payout ratio is 31.09%.

Insider Activity at Reliance

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,115,919.60. This trade represents a 25.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.69% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Reliance

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of RS. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Reliance by 9.4% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 3,709,737 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $998,886,000 after buying an additional 319,576 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in Reliance by 10.4% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,479,542 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $398,381,000 after purchasing an additional 138,866 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in Reliance by 15.5% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,382,916 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $372,364,000 after buying an additional 185,873 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Reliance by 6,311.2% in the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 816,465 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $219,841,000 after buying an additional 803,730 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Reliance by 53.5% during the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $195,402,000 after acquiring an additional 252,955 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.26% of the company’s stock.

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.