AXQ Capital LP Acquires Shares of 4,719 VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN)

AXQ Capital LP acquired a new stake in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 4,719 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $977,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in VRSN. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors acquired a new stake in shares of VeriSign in the 4th quarter valued at about $141,129,000. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of VeriSign by 544.1% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 391,319 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $81,003,000 after purchasing an additional 330,561 shares in the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its stake in shares of VeriSign by 322.2% in the 4th quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 261,526 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $53,639,000 after purchasing an additional 199,583 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of VeriSign in the 3rd quarter valued at about $35,665,000. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in VeriSign by 56.8% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 383,100 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $79,286,000 after acquiring an additional 138,796 shares during the period. 92.90% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of VeriSign from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday. Baird R W upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Robert W. Baird upgraded VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $200.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th.

Insider Buying and Selling at VeriSign

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total value of $103,592.25. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 23,735 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,500,586.25. This represents a 1.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.84% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

VeriSign Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:VRSN opened at $244.51 on Friday. VeriSign, Inc. has a 12 month low of $167.05 and a 12 month high of $245.67. The stock has a market cap of $23.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56 and a beta of 0.87. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $226.47 and its 200 day moving average price is $202.12.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The information services provider reported $2.00 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.00. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 43.01% and a net margin of 50.47%.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides domain name registry services and internet infrastructure that enables internet navigation for various recognized domain names worldwide. The company enables the security, stability, and resiliency of internet infrastructure and services, including providing root zone maintainer services, operating two of thirteen internet root servers; and offering registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net domains, which supports global e-commerce.