VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) Sees Unusually-High Trading Volume - Time to Buy?

Key Points

• VeriSign shares rose 1.6% to about $295.07, with 735,955 shares traded—9% below the prior session’s volume.
• Analyst sentiment remains generally positive: the stock has a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and an average price target of $333, although Zacks downgraded it to “Hold.”
• VeriSign’s latest quarterly results exceeded expectations, with EPS of $2.38 and revenue of $434.6 million, up 6% year over year. The company also paid a quarterly dividend of $0.81 per share, while insiders sold shares during the quarter.

Shares of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN - Get Free Report) saw strong trading volume on Wednesday. 735,955 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 9% from the previous session's volume of 809,855 shares. The stock last traded at $295.0720 and had previously closed at $293.10.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on VeriSign from $308.00 to $316.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, July 24th. Zacks Research cut VeriSign from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 23rd. Weiss Ratings reissued a "buy (b-)" rating on shares of VeriSign in a research note on Monday, September 21st. Finally, Wedbush boosted their price objective on shares of VeriSign from $324.00 to $341.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Tuesday, September 1st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, VeriSign presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $333.00.

VeriSign Stock Up 1.6%

The business has a fifty day moving average of $290.11 and a 200 day moving average of $278.87. The firm has a market cap of $26.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.29 and a beta of 0.69.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $2.36 by $0.02. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 39.20% and a net margin of 49.76%.The company had revenue of $434.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $433.19 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.21 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that VeriSign, Inc. will post 9.59 EPS for the current year.

VeriSign Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 27th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 19th were issued a $0.81 dividend. This represents a $3.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, August 19th. VeriSign's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 35.14%.

Insider Activity at VeriSign

In related news, CEO D. Bidzos sold 3,300 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.20, for a total transaction of $927,960.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 412,939 shares of the company's stock, valued at $116,118,446.80. This trade represents a 0.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 36,500 shares of company stock valued at $10,485,389 over the last quarter. 0.56% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VeriSign

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Addison Advisors LLC bought a new position in VeriSign during the second quarter worth about $30,000. PenderFund Capital Management Ltd. purchased a new position in VeriSign in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd raised its holdings in VeriSign by 120.8% during the 4th quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd now owns 234 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 128 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its holdings in VeriSign by 40.5% during the 2nd quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 243 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $61,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the period. Finally, Global Assets Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VeriSign during the first quarter worth $64,000. 92.90% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc NASDAQ: VRSN provides critical internet infrastructure and domain name registry services. The company operates the authoritative registries for the .com and .net top-level domains and supports the security, stability and availability of these domains worldwide. VeriSign also operates the .name and .cc registries and provides backend registry services for additional top-level domains.

In addition to registry operations, VeriSign offers domain name system (DNS) services designed to help organizations maintain reliable online access.

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