Nomura Holdings Inc. Purchases Shares of 7,181 Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Nomura Holdings Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 7,181 shares of the industrial products company's stock, valued at approximately $1,934,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of RS. Proficio Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in Reliance in the fourth quarter worth about $7,352,000. Pure Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Reliance by 232.9% in the 4th quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 9,281 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $2,499,000 after buying an additional 6,493 shares in the last quarter. Occidental Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Reliance by 5.8% in the 4th quarter. Occidental Asset Management LLC now owns 16,494 shares of the industrial products company's stock worth $4,441,000 after buying an additional 898 shares in the last quarter. Merewether Investment Management LP bought a new position in shares of Reliance during the 4th quarter worth approximately $9,963,000. Finally, BTS Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Reliance during the fourth quarter valued at $707,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.26% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Reliance from $321.00 to $327.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $319.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Karla R. Lewis sold 31,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 90,230 shares of the company's stock, valued at $27,115,919.60. This represents a 25.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.35% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Reliance Trading Down 2.1%

RS traded down $6.20 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $293.58. The stock had a trading volume of 59,287 shares, compared to its average volume of 394,458. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $286.16 and its 200-day simple moving average is $290.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.03 and a beta of 0.91. Reliance, Inc. has a 1-year low of $250.07 and a 1-year high of $326.87. 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 - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $3.77 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.66 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $3.48 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.44 billion. Reliance had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 6.33%. The firm's revenue was down 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $5.30 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Reliance, Inc. will post 16.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 23rd will be given a dividend of $1.20 per share. This represents a $4.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.63%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 23rd. Reliance's dividend payout ratio is currently 34.41%.

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.