Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Grows Position in Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC boosted its position in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS - Free Report) by 7.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 319,609 shares of the industrial products company's stock after buying an additional 20,774 shares during the period. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC owned 0.59% of Reliance worth $86,058,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 319,576 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of 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 during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 185,873 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 803,730 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Reliance by 53.5% in the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 725,685 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $195,402,000 after acquiring an additional 252,955 shares during the last quarter. 79.26% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently commented on RS shares. KeyCorp upped 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 report on Wednesday, January 8th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $319.00.

Reliance Trading Down 1.3 %

RS traded down $3.65 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $284.41. 319,530 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 441,379. The firm's fifty day moving average is $282.99 and its two-hundred day moving average is $289.53. Reliance, Inc. has a 1-year low of $250.07 and a 1-year high of $326.87. The company has a current ratio of 3.21, a quick ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The company has a market cap of $15.04 billion, a PE ratio of 18.42 and a beta of 0.83.

Reliance (NYSE:RS - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $3.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.66 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $3.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.44 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. Reliance's revenue for the quarter was down 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $5.30 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 6th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 23rd will be given a $1.20 dividend. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, May 23rd. Reliance's dividend payout ratio is currently 34.41%.

Insider Buying and Selling 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 stock was sold at an average price of $300.52, for a total transaction of $9,356,990.72. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.35% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.