Kathy Card Beckles Sells 2,111 Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Stock

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 2,111 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.06, for a total transaction of $595,428.66. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 9,066 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,557,155.96. This trade represents a 18.89 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink.

Verisk Analytics Price Performance

Shares of VRSK opened at $279.35 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36. The firm has a market cap of $39.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.58, a PEG ratio of 3.19 and a beta of 0.88. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 52 week low of $217.34 and a 52 week high of $296.58. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $281.91 and a 200-day moving average of $274.88.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $725.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.19 million. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.65% and a return on equity of 274.13%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.52 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th were paid a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.56%. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.34%.

Institutional Trading of Verisk Analytics

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 6.5% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,618,971 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,237,700,000 after buying an additional 283,653 shares during the last quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC boosted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 2,380.6% during the 3rd quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC now owns 272,965 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $73,144,000 after purchasing an additional 261,961 shares during the period. Two Sigma Advisers LP boosted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 46.7% during the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 614,831 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $164,750,000 after purchasing an additional 195,700 shares during the period. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC grew its position in Verisk Analytics by 158.2% in the 3rd quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 184,806 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $49,521,000 after purchasing an additional 113,230 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in Verisk Analytics by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,618,266 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $436,204,000 after acquiring an additional 111,364 shares during the period. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VRSK has been the topic of several recent research reports. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $285.00 to $301.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Barclays cut Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Evercore ISI reiterated an “in-line” rating and set a $279.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Verisk Analytics currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $293.11.

Verisk Analytics Company Profile

Verisk Analytics, Inc provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments.