Townsquare Capital LLC Acquires 1,530 Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Townsquare Capital LLC increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 8.5% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 19,442 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,530 shares during the quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $5,787,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of VRSK. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 36,332.8% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,204,468 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $358,474,000 after buying an additional 1,201,162 shares in the last quarter. Raiffeisen Bank International AG bought a new stake in Verisk Analytics in the 4th quarter worth about $70,005,000. BLI Banque de Luxembourg Investments bought a new stake in Verisk Analytics in the 4th quarter worth about $68,908,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 1.5% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 16,733,589 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $4,980,251,000 after buying an additional 239,483 shares in the last quarter. Finally, D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. increased its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 65.7% in the 4th quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. now owns 594,356 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $163,703,000 after buying an additional 235,642 shares in the last quarter. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have issued reports on the company. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. UBS Group dropped their target price on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $300.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Raymond James Financial set a $315.00 target price on Verisk Analytics and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, August 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Verisk Analytics from $317.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $305.60.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Samuel G. Liss sold 11,656 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $313.06, for a total transaction of $3,649,027.36. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 67,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,051,406.64. The trade was a 14.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 5,419 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $318.10, for a total value of $1,723,783.90. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 56,701 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,036,588.10. The trade was a 8.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,120 shares of company stock valued at $7,192,416 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.46% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Stock Up 0.2%

VRSK stock opened at $265.04 on Friday. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a twelve month low of $260.17 and a twelve month high of $322.92. The company has a quick ratio of 1.53, a current ratio of 1.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.34. The stock has a market cap of $37.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.84, a PEG ratio of 3.75 and a beta of 0.83. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $300.46 and its 200-day moving average price is $296.94.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 30th. The business services provider reported $1.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.77 by $0.11. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 460.89% and a net margin of 30.67%. The firm had revenue of $772.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $767.91 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.74 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 15th will be given a dividend of $0.45 per share. This represents a $1.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 15th. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is presently 27.73%.

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.