Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Given New $300.00 Price Target at Royal Bank of Canada

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) had its target price boosted by Royal Bank of Canada from $268.00 to $300.00 in a report released on Thursday, Benzinga reports. Royal Bank of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the business services provider’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also recently commented on VRSK. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $278.00 to $263.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $255.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $282.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Morgan Stanley raised their price target 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. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $278.67.

Verisk Analytics Stock Performance

NASDAQ:VRSK opened at $267.27 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.86, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 0.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $38.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 49.86, a PEG ratio of 3.42 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $268.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $259.10. Verisk Analytics has a fifty-two week low of $215.32 and a fifty-two week high of $287.13.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The business services provider reported $1.74 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.64 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $716.80 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $722.45 million. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.03% and a return on equity of 252.11%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.51 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics will post 6.57 EPS for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Sunday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.58%. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio is currently 29.10%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $271.33, for a total value of $54,266.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 15,808 shares in the company, valued at $4,289,184.64. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Verisk Analytics

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of VRSK. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. boosted its position in Verisk Analytics by 60.4% during the second quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 541,426 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $145,941,000 after acquiring an additional 203,951 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Verisk Analytics during the first quarter worth approximately $28,739,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 187.1% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 171,835 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $46,305,000 after acquiring an additional 111,992 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,618,266 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $436,204,000 after acquiring an additional 111,364 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 33.7% in the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 373,800 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $100,758,000 after acquiring an additional 94,300 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.