Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Releases FY 2024 Earnings Guidance

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 6.300-6.600 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 6.510. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.8 billion-$2.9 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.9 billion. Verisk Analytics also updated its FY24 guidance to $6.30-6.60 EPS.

Verisk Analytics Stock Up 1.5 %

VRSK stock traded up $3.57 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $237.33. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,127,556 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,025,848. The company has a quick ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.94. Verisk Analytics has a 52-week low of $205.70 and a 52-week high of $251.98. The firm has a market capitalization of $33.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.28, a PEG ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.79. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $231.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $236.03.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The business services provider reported $1.63 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.52 by $0.11. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 28.45% and a return on equity of 268.19%. The company had revenue of $704.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $699.07 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.29 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 8.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Verisk Analytics will post 6.53 EPS for the current year.

Verisk Analytics Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 28th. Shareholders of record on Saturday, June 15th will be given a $0.39 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 14th. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. Verisk Analytics’s dividend payout ratio is presently 29.10%.

Verisk Analytics declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, February 21st that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the business services provider to reacquire up to 2.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

VRSK has been the subject of several recent research reports. Evercore ISI reissued an in-line rating and issued a $250.00 price target on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Bank of America lowered shares of Verisk Analytics from a buy rating to a neutral rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $270.00 to $260.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $238.00 to $241.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a report on Thursday. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $252.21.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Verisk Analytics news, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $233.06, for a total value of $1,510,461.86. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 12,140 shares in the company, valued at $2,829,348.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Verisk Analytics news, CAO David J. Grover sold 6,481 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $233.06, for a total value of $1,510,461.86. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 12,140 shares in the company, valued at $2,829,348.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Nicholas Daffan sold 1,554 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.93, for a total transaction of $346,433.22. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 51,715 shares in the company, valued at $11,528,824.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 11,300 shares of company stock worth $2,647,952 in the last ninety days. 0.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.