Insider Selling: Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) CEO Sells 1,000 Shares of Stock

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) CEO Lee Shavel sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.49, for a total transaction of $286,490.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 54,163 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,517,157.87. The trade was a 1.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Lee Shavel also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, November 18th, Lee Shavel sold 1,000 shares of Verisk Analytics stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.71, for a total value of $280,710.00.

Verisk Analytics Stock Performance

NASDAQ VRSK opened at $280.36 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $271.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $267.37. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.34 and a 12-month high of $291.42. The company has a market capitalization of $39.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.74, a P/E/G ratio of 3.52 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. The business 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 posted $1.52 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a $0.39 dividend. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is currently 24.34%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VRSK has been the subject of several research analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $243.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Verisk Analytics to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $282.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $285.80.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. KBC Group NV increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 15.3% in the 3rd quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 35,908 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $9,622,000 after buying an additional 4,767 shares during the period. CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its stake in Verisk Analytics by 5.7% in the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 44,290 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $11,868,000 after acquiring an additional 2,374 shares during the last quarter. Diversified Trust Co bought a new position in Verisk Analytics in the second quarter valued at approximately $1,325,000. OFI Invest Asset Management raised its position in Verisk Analytics by 2,181.7% during the second quarter. OFI Invest Asset Management now owns 2,875 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $723,000 after purchasing an additional 2,749 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB bought a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the first quarter worth $28,739,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.00% of the company’s stock.

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.