Insider Selling: Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Director Sells $347,746.05 in Stock

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $294.95, for a total transaction of $347,746.05. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 13,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,066,180.70. The trade was a 7.88 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Bruce Edward Hansen also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, January 7th, Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of Verisk Analytics stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.81, for a total transaction of $321,642.99.

Verisk Analytics Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of VRSK opened at $293.06 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $281.46 and a 200-day simple moving average of $275.92. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 1-year low of $217.34 and a 1-year high of $296.58. The stock has a market cap of $41.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.39 and a beta of 0.89.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th were paid a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.53%. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.34%.

Institutional Trading of Verisk Analytics

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Manchester Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Verisk Analytics by 468.8% during the fourth quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 91 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the last quarter. Sugarloaf Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Roxbury Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the fourth quarter worth approximately $29,000. Centricity Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.00% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VRSK has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets raised 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 report on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Barclays cut shares of Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 target price for the company. in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased 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. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Verisk Analytics has a consensus 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.