Share Repurchase Program Declared by Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Board

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 26th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the business services provider to repurchase up to 2.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Verisk Analytics from $298.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Thursday. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $297.00 and gave the company a "market perform" rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Verisk Analytics presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $299.33.

Verisk Analytics Price Performance

Shares of VRSK stock traded up $6.80 during trading on Friday, hitting $296.91. The company had a trading volume of 1,029,579 shares, compared to its average volume of 740,925. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $41.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.89. The stock's 50-day moving average price is $284.30 and its 200 day moving average price is $278.35. Verisk Analytics has a one year low of $217.34 and a one year high of $300.50.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The business services provider reported $1.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $735.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $733.55 million. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. Equities analysts expect that Verisk Analytics will post 6.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Verisk Analytics Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.45 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This is a boost from Verisk Analytics's previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.61%. Verisk Analytics's dividend payout ratio is presently 26.87%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verisk Analytics news, Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $294.95, for a total transaction of $347,746.05. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 13,786 shares in the company, valued at $4,066,180.70. This represents a 7.88 % 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. Also, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 2,111 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.06, for a total value of $595,428.66. Following the sale, the insider now owns 9,066 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,557,155.96. The trade was a 18.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 4,469 shares of company stock worth $1,264,818 over the last three months. 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.