VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) Stock: Insider Thomas Indelicarto Sells 500 Shares

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) EVP Thomas Indelicarto sold 500 shares of VeriSign stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $284.38, for a total value of $142,190.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 32,395 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,212,490.10. This represents a 1.52% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

VeriSign Price Performance

VRSN stock traded up $1.42 during trading on Friday, reaching $288.32. 1,241,269 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 808,185. The company has a 50-day moving average of $289.36 and a two-hundred day moving average of $277.81. The company has a market capitalization of $26.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.27 and a beta of 0.69. VeriSign, Inc. has a twelve month low of $208.86 and a twelve month high of $312.48.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.38 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.36 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $434.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $433.19 million. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 39.20% and a net margin of 49.76%.VeriSign’s revenue was up 6.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.21 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that VeriSign, Inc. will post 9.59 EPS for the current year.

VeriSign Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 27th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 19th were issued a dividend of $0.81 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 19th. This represents a $3.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. VeriSign’s payout ratio is presently 35.14%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On VeriSign

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VRSN. Groupe la Francaise increased its position in shares of VeriSign by 2.8% during the first quarter. Groupe la Francaise now owns 1,413 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $351,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. Waverly Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in VeriSign by 2.1% during the first quarter. Waverly Advisors LLC now owns 2,069 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $514,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. Strive Financial Group LLC increased its position in shares of VeriSign by 4.3% during the second quarter. Strive Financial Group LLC now owns 1,009 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $254,000 after acquiring an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of VeriSign by 6.1% during the 1st quarter. AlphaCentric Advisors LLC now owns 802 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $199,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Basecamp Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in VeriSign by 19.0% during the first quarter. Basecamp Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 295 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $73,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the last quarter. 92.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of VeriSign in a report on Monday, September 21st. Zacks Research lowered shares of VeriSign from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 23rd. Wedbush increased their price objective on shares of VeriSign from $324.00 to $341.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of VeriSign from $308.00 to $316.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, July 24th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, VeriSign presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $333.00.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc (NASDAQ:VRSN) provides critical internet infrastructure and domain name registry services. The company operates the authoritative registries for the .com and .net top-level domains and supports the security, stability and availability of these domains worldwide. VeriSign also operates the .name and .cc registries and provides backend registry services for additional top-level domains.

In addition to registry operations, VeriSign offers domain name system (DNS) services designed to help organizations maintain reliable online access.