Icon Wealth Advisors LLC Acquires 10,726 Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Icon Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK - Free Report) by 899.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 11,919 shares of the business services provider's stock after acquiring an additional 10,726 shares during the quarter. Icon Wealth Advisors LLC's holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $2,913,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in VRSK. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 109.2% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 12,729 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $3,000,000 after acquiring an additional 6,645 shares in the last quarter. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics during the first quarter worth about $266,000. MQS Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics during the first quarter worth about $226,000. EntryPoint Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics in the first quarter valued at approximately $108,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 72.4% in the 1st quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,464 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $581,000 after buying an additional 1,035 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.00% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have issued reports on VRSK shares. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $243.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Evercore ISI restated an "in-line" rating and issued a $279.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $285.00 to $301.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Wells Fargo & Company raised Verisk Analytics to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $285.80.

Verisk Analytics Trading Up 1.1 %

NASDAQ VRSK opened at $287.44 on Friday. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a one year low of $217.34 and a one year high of $291.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $272.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of $267.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $40.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.84, a P/E/G ratio of 3.53 and a beta of 0.86.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $725.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.19 million. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.65% and a return on equity of 274.13%. Verisk Analytics's revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.52 EPS. Research analysts expect that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.54%. Verisk Analytics's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.34%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Lee Shavel sold 1,000 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.49, for a total transaction of $286,490.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 54,163 shares in the company, valued at $15,517,157.87. This trade represents a 1.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $271.33, for a total transaction of $54,266.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 15,808 shares in the company, valued at $4,289,184.64. This represents a 1.25 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 2,400 shares of company stock worth $678,764 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company's stock.

Verisk Analytics Company 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.

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