Empirical Finance LLC Has $1.38 Million Position in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Empirical Finance LLC grew its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 2.0% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 5,131 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 101 shares during the quarter. Empirical Finance LLC’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $1,375,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. raised its position in Verisk Analytics by 60.4% during the second quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 541,426 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $145,941,000 after purchasing an additional 203,951 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new position in Verisk Analytics in the first quarter valued at about $28,739,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 187.1% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 171,835 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $46,305,000 after acquiring an additional 111,992 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 7.4% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,618,266 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $436,204,000 after acquiring an additional 111,364 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 33.7% during the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 373,800 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $100,758,000 after purchasing an additional 94,300 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.00% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Verisk Analytics news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the 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 transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 15,808 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,289,184.64. This represents a 1.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Verisk Analytics Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ VRSK opened at $280.80 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $271.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $266.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 52-week low of $217.34 and a 52-week high of $291.42. The company has a market capitalization of $39.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.59 and a beta of 0.86.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $725.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.19 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.52 earnings per share. Verisk Analytics’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Investors 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 0.56%. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is presently 24.34%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on VRSK. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $243.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Verisk Analytics to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target 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.