Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Releases FY24 Earnings Guidance

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of $6.30-6.60 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.52. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.84-2.90 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.88 billion. Verisk Analytics also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 6.300-6.600 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Bank of America downgraded Verisk Analytics from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $270.00 to $260.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Verisk Analytics from $238.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, Evercore ISI restated an in-line rating and set a $250.00 price target on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $252.21.

Verisk Analytics Price Performance

VRSK opened at $237.33 on Friday. Verisk Analytics has a 12-month low of $205.70 and a 12-month high of $251.98. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $231.57 and its 200-day simple moving average is $236.03. The company has a market capitalization of $33.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.28, a PEG ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a current ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.94.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 1st. The business services provider reported $1.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.52 by $0.11. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 268.19% and a net margin of 28.45%. The company had revenue of $704.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $699.07 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.29 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Verisk Analytics will post 6.53 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 28th. Investors of record on Saturday, June 15th will be given a dividend of $0.39 per share. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 14th. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio is currently 29.10%.

Verisk Analytics declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 21st that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the business services provider to purchase up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at Verisk Analytics

In other Verisk Analytics news, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 1,507 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.25, for a total value of $375,619.75. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 50,208 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,514,344. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Verisk Analytics news, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 1,507 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $249.25, for a total value of $375,619.75. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 50,208 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,514,344. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 12,140 shares in the company, valued at $2,829,348.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 11,300 shares of company stock worth $2,647,952. 0.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.