Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.11 EPS

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) announced its earnings results on Wednesday. The business services provider reported $1.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.52 by $0.11, Briefing.com reports. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 305.15% and a net margin of 22.92%. The firm had revenue of $704.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $699.07 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.29 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 8.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Verisk Analytics updated its FY24 guidance to $6.30-6.60 EPS and its FY 2024 guidance to 6.300-6.600 EPS.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 0.6 %

Verisk Analytics stock traded down $1.29 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $231.52. The company had a trading volume of 147,850 shares, compared to its average volume of 886,720. The company has a current ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.85. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $231.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $236.05. Verisk Analytics has a 12 month low of $198.40 and a 12 month high of $251.98. The company has a market capitalization of $33.05 billion, a PE ratio of 55.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 0.79.

Verisk Analytics Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a $0.39 dividend. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.67%. This is an increase from Verisk Analytics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.34. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is 37.05%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verisk Analytics news, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 1,554 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $222.93, for a total value of $346,433.22. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 51,715 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,528,824.95. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Verisk Analytics news, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $233.06, for a total value of $1,510,461.86. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 12,140 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,829,348.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 1,554 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.93, for a total value of $346,433.22. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 51,715 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,528,824.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 11,300 shares of company stock valued at $2,647,952. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Evercore ISI reaffirmed an “in-line” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Bank of America downgraded Verisk Analytics from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $270.00 to $260.00 in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Verisk Analytics currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $252.00.

Verisk Analytics announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, February 21st that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the business services provider to repurchase up to 2.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

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.