Insider Selling: Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Insider Sells 326 Shares of Stock

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 326 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, July 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $300.86, for a total value of $98,080.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 9,319 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,803,714.34. The trade was a 3.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 0.3%

VRSK traded down $0.82 on Thursday, hitting $302.90. 724,673 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 779,890. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 12 month low of $257.59 and a 12 month high of $322.92. The company has a market cap of $42.37 billion, a PE ratio of 44.35, a PEG ratio of 3.75 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 26.13, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a current ratio of 1.27. The stock's fifty day moving average is $308.99 and its 200-day moving average is $294.99.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The business services provider reported $1.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.68 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $753.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $750.31 million. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 396.08% and a net margin of 33.13%. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.63 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 13th were paid a $0.45 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 13th. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.59%. Verisk Analytics's dividend payout ratio is 26.35%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have issued reports on VRSK shares. UBS Group boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $295.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, Bank of America started coverage on Verisk Analytics in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. They issued an "underperform" rating and a $280.00 target price for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $302.40.

Institutional Trading of Verisk Analytics

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 1.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 16,733,589 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $4,980,251,000 after buying an additional 239,483 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 0.5% in the first quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 5,235,090 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $1,558,067,000 after buying an additional 25,010 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 4,691,016 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $1,292,047,000 after buying an additional 72,045 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,811,563 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $1,051,300,000 after purchasing an additional 19,423 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 36.0% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,251,051 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $669,958,000 after purchasing an additional 596,225 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.00% of the company's stock.

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.