T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. Decreases Stock Holdings in Verisk Analytics, Inc. $VRSK

Key Points

• T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. reduced its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 26.2% during Q1, bringing its ownership to approximately 0.75% of the company, valued at $313.8 million.
• A majority of Verisk Analytics' stock, approximately 90%, is owned by institutional investors, including recent stake increases by Vanguard and Invesco.
• Verisk Analytics reported $1.88 earnings per share for the last quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations, and announced a $0.45 per share quarterly dividend to be paid on September 30th.

T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. reduced its position in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK - Free Report) by 26.2% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,054,466 shares of the business services provider's stock after selling 373,712 shares during the quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. owned about 0.75% of Verisk Analytics worth $313,831,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of VRSK. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Verisk Analytics by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 16,733,589 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $4,980,251,000 after purchasing an additional 239,483 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 36.0% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,251,051 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $669,958,000 after buying an additional 596,225 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the first quarter worth approximately $508,611,000. Northern Trust Corp lifted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 2.1% during the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,674,516 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $498,369,000 after purchasing an additional 34,797 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc lifted its stake in Verisk Analytics by 4.8% during the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,537,613 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $457,624,000 after purchasing an additional 70,571 shares during the last quarter. 90.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on VRSK. UBS Group decreased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $300.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Raymond James Financial set a $315.00 target price on Verisk Analytics and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Monday, August 4th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Verisk Analytics from $317.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $305.60.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 0.1%

Verisk Analytics stock opened at $270.85 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.34, a current ratio of 1.53 and a quick ratio of 1.53. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 1-year low of $259.01 and a 1-year high of $322.92. The company has a market cap of $37.84 billion, a PE ratio of 41.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.84 and a beta of 0.83. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $292.49 and its 200 day moving average price is $295.95.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The business services provider reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.77 by $0.11. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 460.89% and a net margin of 30.67%.The firm had revenue of $772.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $767.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.74 earnings per share. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Verisk Analytics has set its FY 2025 guidance at 6.800-7.000 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 15th will be given a dividend of $0.45 per share. This represents a $1.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 15th. Verisk Analytics's payout ratio is presently 27.73%.

Insider Activity at Verisk Analytics

In other Verisk Analytics news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 300 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.00, for a total transaction of $80,400.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 15,465 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,144,620. The trade was a 1.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Christopher John Perry acquired 1,000 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 13th. The stock was bought at an average price of $259.80 per share, for a total transaction of $259,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 1,773 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $460,625.40. This represents a 129.37% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders sold 25,620 shares of company stock valued at $7,862,427 in the last 90 days. 0.46% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat's editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.