Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Buys Shares of 16,100 Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new stake in shares of Reliance, Inc. (NYSE:RS - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 16,100 shares of the industrial products company's stock, valued at approximately $4,503,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in Reliance by 14.5% during 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 period. State Street Corp lifted its position in Reliance by 13.8% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,560,441 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $657,368,000 after purchasing an additional 310,339 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Reliance by 3.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,394,787 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $358,099,000 after purchasing an additional 50,623 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Reliance by 1.0% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,197,200 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $313,942,000 after purchasing an additional 12,166 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Reliance by 35.4% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 723,755 shares of the industrial products company's stock valued at $189,790,000 after purchasing an additional 189,326 shares during the period. 79.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at Reliance

In related news, CFO Arthur Ajemyan sold 3,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were 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 owns 15,577 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,030,592.15. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, Director James Donald Hoffman sold 40,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $322.95, for a total value of $12,918,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 54,042 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $17,452,863.90. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Arthur Ajemyan sold 3,000 shares of Reliance stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were 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 owns 15,577 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $5,030,592.15. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 85,996 shares of company stock valued at $27,603,878 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.62% of the company's stock.

Reliance Price Performance

Shares of RS stock traded down $5.22 on Friday, reaching $325.53. 182,013 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 238,508. The company has a market cap of $18.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.40, a P/E/G ratio of 5.73 and a beta of 0.87. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $321.69 and a 200 day moving average price of $288.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 3.23 and a current ratio of 5.66. Reliance, Inc. has a 1 year low of $229.12 and a 1 year high of $342.20.

Reliance (NYSE:RS - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The industrial products company reported $4.73 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.92 by $0.81. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $3.31 billion. Reliance had a net margin of 9.02% and a return on equity of 17.53%. The company's quarterly revenue was down 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $5.87 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Reliance, Inc. will post 19.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Reliance Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th were paid a dividend of $1.10 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $4.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.35%. This is a boost from Reliance's previous quarterly dividend of $1.00. Reliance's payout ratio is currently 19.46%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

RS has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Reliance from $295.00 to $355.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Citigroup downgraded shares of Reliance from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $280.00 to $380.00 in a research report on Thursday. Finally, KeyCorp upped their price objective on shares of Reliance from $300.00 to $362.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $365.67.

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.