Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.39

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 13th,Zacks Dividends reports. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a dividend of 0.39 per share by the business services provider on Tuesday, December 31st. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th.

Verisk Analytics has increased its dividend payment by an average of 8.0% annually over the last three years. Verisk Analytics has a dividend payout ratio of 21.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Verisk Analytics to earn $7.25 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 21.5%.

Verisk Analytics Trading Down 0.2 %

VRSK traded down $0.66 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $289.38. The stock had a trading volume of 50,297 shares, compared to its average volume of 787,544. Verisk Analytics has a 1-year low of $217.34 and a 1-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 firm has a market capitalization of $40.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.61 and a beta of 0.86. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $270.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $265.91.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.07. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.65% and a return on equity of 274.13%. The firm had revenue of $725.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $722.19 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.52 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics will post 6.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verisk Analytics news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $271.33, for a total value of $54,266.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 15,808 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,289,184.64. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

VRSK has been the topic of a number of research reports. 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 note on Wednesday, July 31st. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Verisk Analytics to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Barclays upped 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. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Six equities research 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Verisk Analytics has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $285.80.

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.