City Holding Co. Buys 152 Shares of Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK)

City Holding Co. raised its stake in Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) by 3.3% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 4,771 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 152 shares during the quarter. City Holding Co.’s holdings in Verisk Analytics were worth $1,420,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in Verisk Analytics by 7.7% in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 747,337 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $205,839,000 after buying an additional 53,502 shares in the last quarter. Sycomore Asset Management grew its stake in Verisk Analytics by 27.4% during the fourth quarter. Sycomore Asset Management now owns 24,085 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $6,382,000 after buying an additional 5,187 shares during the last quarter. Allworth Financial LP increased its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 6.9% during the fourth quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 1,619 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $452,000 after buying an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Savant Capital LLC increased its stake in shares of Verisk Analytics by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 1,726 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $475,000 after buying an additional 86 shares in the last quarter. 90.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on VRSK. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Verisk Analytics from $325.00 to $321.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $295.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Verisk Analytics in a report on Thursday, April 10th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $280.00 price target for the company. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Verisk Analytics from $280.00 to $297.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Verisk Analytics from $320.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $302.40.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO David J. Grover sold 5,705 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.68, for a total transaction of $1,755,314.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 12,937 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,980,456.16. This trade represents a 30.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 5,419 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $318.10, for a total value of $1,723,783.90. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 56,701 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,036,588.10. This trade represents a 8.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 12,603 shares of company stock valued at $3,904,741. 0.46% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Verisk Analytics Price Performance

VRSK opened at $319.60 on Monday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $300.68 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $291.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $44.71 billion, a PE ratio of 49.86, a P/E/G ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.87. Verisk Analytics, Inc. has a 52 week low of $257.59 and a 52 week high of $322.92.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 7th. The business services provider reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.68 by $0.05. Verisk Analytics had a return on equity of 274.13% and a net margin of 32.65%. The business had revenue of $753.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $750.31 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.63 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 7.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Verisk Analytics, Inc. will post 6.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.45 per share. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.56%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 13th. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.35%.

Verisk Analytics announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the business services provider to repurchase up to 2.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

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.