1,940 Shares in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) Acquired by Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD.

Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD. acquired a new stake in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN - Free Report) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 1,940 shares of the information services provider's stock, valued at approximately $402,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of VRSN. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors acquired a new stake in VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at $141,129,000. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in shares of VeriSign by 544.1% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 391,319 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $81,003,000 after purchasing an additional 330,561 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its stake in VeriSign by 322.2% in the 4th quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 261,526 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $53,639,000 after purchasing an additional 199,583 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in VeriSign during the third quarter worth about $35,665,000. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in VeriSign by 56.8% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 383,100 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $79,286,000 after buying an additional 138,796 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.90% of the company's stock.

VeriSign Trading Up 1.4 %

NASDAQ VRSN traded up $3.28 during trading on Monday, reaching $241.16. The company's stock had a trading volume of 657,270 shares, compared to its average volume of 797,037. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $216.48 and a 200 day moving average price of $196.26. VeriSign, Inc. has a 12 month low of $167.04 and a 12 month high of $242.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.15 and a beta of 0.90.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The information services provider reported $2.00 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts' consensus estimates of $2.00. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 43.01% and a net margin of 50.47%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total transaction of $103,592.25. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 23,735 shares in the company, valued at $5,500,586.25. This represents a 1.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.84% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on VRSN. Robert W. Baird raised VeriSign from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $200.00 to $250.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th. Baird R W raised shares of VeriSign from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Finally, StockNews.com raised VeriSign from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, January 7th.

VeriSign Profile

VeriSign, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides domain name registry services and internet infrastructure that enables internet navigation for various recognized domain names worldwide. The company enables the security, stability, and resiliency of internet infrastructure and services, including providing root zone maintainer services, operating two of thirteen internet root servers; and offering registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net domains, which supports global e-commerce.