Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. Has $586,000 Position in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN)

Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. lessened its holdings in shares of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 2,831 shares of the information services provider’s stock after selling 80 shares during the quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd.’s holdings in VeriSign were worth $586,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. TIAA Trust National Association bought a new stake in VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at about $210,000. EntryPoint Capital LLC grew its position in shares of VeriSign by 19.2% during the 4th quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC now owns 2,361 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $489,000 after buying an additional 381 shares during the period. LPL Financial LLC raised its position in shares of VeriSign by 47.0% in the 4th quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 47,376 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $9,805,000 after acquiring an additional 15,147 shares during the period. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS bought a new position in VeriSign during the 4th quarter worth approximately $22,285,000. Finally, AXQ Capital LP acquired a new position in VeriSign during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $977,000. Institutional investors own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Baird R W raised shares of VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Robert W. Baird upgraded VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $200.00 to $250.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com downgraded VeriSign from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 4th.

VeriSign Stock Up 2.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ:VRSN opened at $254.74 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $24.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.84 and a beta of 0.87. VeriSign, Inc. has a 12 month low of $167.05 and a 12 month high of $256.35. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $229.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $203.91.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last issued its quarterly 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 negative return on equity of 43.01% and a net margin of 50.47%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of VeriSign stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total value of $103,592.25. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 23,735 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,500,586.25. The trade was a 1.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 0.84% 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.