Canoe Financial LP Trims Stock Holdings in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN)

Canoe Financial LP reduced its holdings in shares of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN - Free Report) by 1.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 241,361 shares of the information services provider's stock after selling 2,316 shares during the period. Canoe Financial LP owned about 0.25% of VeriSign worth $49,952,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in VeriSign in the 4th quarter worth approximately $989,000. Empirical Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of VeriSign in the fourth quarter worth approximately $244,000. Burney Co. raised its position in shares of VeriSign by 19.5% during the 4th quarter. Burney Co. now owns 9,060 shares of the information services provider's stock valued at $1,875,000 after purchasing an additional 1,479 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its stake in shares of VeriSign by 56.8% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Crestmont Private Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in VeriSign by 4.7% in the 4th quarter. Crestmont Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,745 shares of the information services provider's stock worth $568,000 after buying an additional 122 shares during the period. 92.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at VeriSign

In other VeriSign news, EVP Danny R. Mcpherson sold 2,092 shares of VeriSign stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.43, for a total transaction of $402,563.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 26,157 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,033,391.51. The trade was a 7.41 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.84% of the stock is owned by insiders.

VeriSign Stock Performance

NASDAQ:VRSN traded down $0.96 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $209.72. The stock had a trading volume of 503,271 shares, compared to its average volume of 637,182. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.15 billion, a PE ratio of 24.39 and a beta of 0.89. VeriSign, Inc. has a 52 week low of $167.04 and a 52 week high of $213.68. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $196.39 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $186.81.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The information services provider reported $2.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.06. VeriSign had a net margin of 55.74% and a negative return on equity of 45.59%. The company had revenue of $390.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $390.19 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.83 earnings per share. VeriSign's revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on VRSN. Citigroup boosted their price objective on VeriSign from $210.00 to $238.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Baird R W raised VeriSign from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com raised shares of VeriSign from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised shares of 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.

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.