Trueblood Wealth Management LLC Purchases Shares of 792 Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Trueblood Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 792 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $218,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Sugarloaf Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Verisk Analytics during the 4th quarter valued at about $28,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the third quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Carolina Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Verisk Analytics during the third quarter valued at approximately $50,000. Catalyst Capital Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 101.5% during the third quarter. Catalyst Capital Advisors LLC now owns 276 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $74,000 after buying an additional 139 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP purchased a new stake in Verisk Analytics in the 3rd quarter valued at $79,000. Institutional investors own 90.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

VRSK has been the subject of several analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Evercore ISI restated an “in-line” rating and issued a $279.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Barclays downgraded Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $285.00 to $301.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $293.11.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $272.81, for a total transaction of $321,642.99. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 13,786 shares in the company, valued at $3,760,958.66. This represents a 7.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 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 transaction 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 $4,471,535.92. This trade represents a 1.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 3,379 shares of company stock worth $946,141 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Stock Performance

Shares of VRSK opened at $278.55 on Tuesday. 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 cap of $39.33 billion, a PE ratio of 43.46, a PEG ratio of 3.08 and a beta of 0.88. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 1 year low of $217.34 and a 1 year high of $296.58. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $282.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $274.80.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The business services provider reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.19 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.52 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 EPS for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 13th were issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.56%. Verisk Analytics’s payout ratio is 24.34%.

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.