Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Takes Position in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 891 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $182,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its stake in shares of VeriSign by 544.1% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 391,319 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $81,003,000 after buying an additional 330,561 shares during the period. Birch Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of VeriSign by 3,996.0% during the fourth quarter. Birch Capital Management LLC now owns 4,096 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $848,000 after buying an additional 3,996 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its position in VeriSign by 322.2% during the fourth quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 261,526 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $53,639,000 after purchasing an additional 199,583 shares in the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp boosted its position in VeriSign by 12.2% during the fourth quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 20,462 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $4,235,000 after purchasing an additional 2,218 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MML Investors Services LLC boosted its position in VeriSign by 602.6% during the third quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 11,712 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,225,000 after purchasing an additional 10,045 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total value of $103,592.25. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 23,735 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,500,586.25. This trade represents a 1.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.84% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird raised VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Baird R W raised VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com downgraded VeriSign from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th.

VeriSign Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ VRSN opened at $244.51 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $23.13 billion, a PE ratio of 30.56 and a beta of 0.87. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $226.47 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $202.24. VeriSign, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $167.05 and a fifty-two week high of $245.67.

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

About VeriSign

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.