Evercore ISI Reiterates “In-Line” Rating for Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK)

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK)‘s stock had its “in-line” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Evercore ISI in a research note issued on Wednesday, Marketbeat reports. They presently have a $279.00 price target on the business services provider’s stock. Evercore ISI’s target price indicates a potential upside of 3.08% from the company’s current price.

VRSK has been the topic of several other research reports. Morgan Stanley raised 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. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Verisk Analytics from $278.00 to $263.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Barclays boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $275.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $255.00 to $285.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $276.69.

Verisk Analytics Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ VRSK opened at $270.67 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.86. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $268.68 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $256.70. Verisk Analytics has a 52-week low of $215.32 and a 52-week high of $287.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $38.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.50, a P/E/G ratio of 3.36 and a beta of 0.86.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The business services provider reported $1.74 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.64 by $0.10. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.03% and a return on equity of 252.11%. The company had revenue of $716.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.45 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.51 earnings per share. Verisk Analytics’s revenue was up 6.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics will post 6.56 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verisk Analytics news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.38, for a total transaction of $55,476.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 16,408 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,551,251.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Verisk Analytics

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VRSK. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 60.4% during the 2nd quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 541,426 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $145,941,000 after acquiring an additional 203,951 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 16,407,133 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $3,919,008,000 after purchasing an additional 170,620 shares in the last quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group boosted its holdings in Verisk Analytics by 24.9% in the fourth quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 690,022 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $164,819,000 after purchasing an additional 137,706 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in Verisk Analytics in the first quarter worth $28,739,000. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 111,992 shares in the last quarter. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Verisk Analytics

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.