Insider Selling: Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Director Sells $321,642.99 in Stock

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.81, for a total transaction of $321,642.99. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 13,786 shares in the company, valued at $3,760,958.66. The trade was a 7.88 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 4.2 %

VRSK opened at $268.63 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $282.62 and a 200-day moving average price of $274.57. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.34 and a twelve month high of $296.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $37.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.91, a PEG ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 0.88.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.65% and a return on equity of 274.13%. The firm had revenue of $725.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $722.19 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.52 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th were issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.58%. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is 24.34%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 6.5% during 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. Legal & General Group Plc increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 7.4% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,618,266 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $436,204,000 after buying an additional 111,364 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 6.8% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,231,201 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $331,476,000 after buying an additional 78,376 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 8.4% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,103,628 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $297,491,000 after buying an additional 85,202 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 1.0% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 801,150 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $214,676,000 after buying an additional 8,262 shares during the last quarter. 90.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on VRSK shares. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Evercore ISI reissued an “in-line” rating and set a $279.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Barclays downgraded shares of Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Friday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Tuesday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $293.11.

About Verisk Analytics

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.