StockNews.com Downgrades VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) to Hold

StockNews.com cut shares of VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report report published on Friday morning.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $200.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Baird R W upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th.

VeriSign Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ VRSN opened at $244.51 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $226.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $202.12. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56 and a beta of 0.87. VeriSign has a 52 week low of $167.05 and a 52 week high of $245.67.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The information services provider reported $2.00 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.00. VeriSign had a net margin of 50.47% and a negative return on equity of 43.01%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total transaction of $103,592.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 23,735 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,500,586.25. This trade represents a 1.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.84% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its stake in VeriSign by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 135,520 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $28,047,000 after buying an additional 1,117 shares during the period. 111 Capital purchased a new position in VeriSign during the fourth quarter worth about $516,000. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC purchased a new position in shares of VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $254,000. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH purchased a new position in shares of VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,348,000. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH purchased a new position in shares of VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $45,526,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides domain name registry services and internet infrastructure that enables internet navigation for various recognized domain names worldwide. The company enables the security, stability, and resiliency of internet infrastructure and services, including providing root zone maintainer services, operating two of thirteen internet root servers; and offering registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net domains, which supports global e-commerce.