Hilltop Holdings Inc. Makes New $864,000 Investment in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Hilltop Holdings Inc. bought a new position in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 3,224 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $864,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 2nd quarter valued at about $31,000. Chilton Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 2nd quarter valued at about $34,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 3rd quarter valued at about $34,000. Rothschild Investment LLC bought a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 2nd quarter valued at about $41,000. Finally, Kings Path Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 2nd quarter valued at about $46,000. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on VRSK. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Barclays increased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Evercore ISI restated an “in-line” rating and set a $279.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Verisk Analytics to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $285.80.

Verisk Analytics Trading Up 0.9 %

NASDAQ VRSK opened at $291.69 on Thursday. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $217.34 and a fifty-two week high of $296.58. 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 stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $276.98 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $270.94. The stock has a market cap of $41.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.67 and a beta of 0.87.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. The business had revenue of $725.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $722.19 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.52 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a $0.39 dividend. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is presently 24.34%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Lee Shavel sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.71, for a total value of $280,710.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 53,163 shares in the company, valued at $14,923,385.73. This trade represents a 1.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.49, for a total value of $57,298.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 15,608 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,471,535.92. The trade was a 1.27 % 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 quarter. 0.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.