California Public Employees Retirement System Decreases Stock Position in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

California Public Employees Retirement System decreased its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 1.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 663,571 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 11,412 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $182,767,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Public Sector Pension Investment Board raised its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 8.8% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 6,183 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,657,000 after buying an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. PEAK6 Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics in the 3rd quarter valued at $705,000. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its stake in Verisk Analytics by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 86,008 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $23,047,000 after acquiring an additional 1,247 shares during the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec lifted its position in Verisk Analytics by 121.8% during the 3rd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 83,428 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $22,355,000 after acquiring an additional 45,812 shares during the period. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new stake in Verisk Analytics during the 3rd quarter valued at about $423,000. 90.00% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on VRSK. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Barclays cut shares of Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 target price for the company. in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $297.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Verisk Analytics has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $299.33.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 0.8 %

VRSK opened at $294.58 on Monday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $290.81 and a two-hundred day moving average of $281.46. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.96, a PEG ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.89. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.34 and a fifty-two week high of $306.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The business services provider reported $1.61 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.01. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. The company had revenue of $735.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $733.55 million. On average, research analysts expect that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $0.45 dividend. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.61%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This is a positive change from Verisk Analytics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is presently 26.87%.

Verisk Analytics announced that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Wednesday, February 26th that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the business services provider to reacquire up to 2.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 2,111 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.06, for a total transaction of $595,428.66. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 9,066 shares in the company, valued at $2,557,155.96. This represents a 18.89 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $294.95, for a total value of $347,746.05. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 13,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,066,180.70. The trade was a 7.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 5,648 shares of company stock worth $1,613,047. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Profile

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.