Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) Declares $0.39 Quarterly Dividend

Verisk Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSK) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 24th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Sunday, September 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.39 per share by the business services provider on Monday, September 30th. This represents a $1.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th.

Verisk Analytics has increased its dividend payment by an average of 8.0% annually over the last three years. Verisk Analytics has a dividend payout ratio of 21.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Verisk Analytics to earn $7.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.56 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 21.6%.

Verisk Analytics Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of VRSK opened at $271.63 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.86, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.95. Verisk Analytics has a 1 year low of $215.32 and a 1 year high of $287.13. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $271.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $253.65. The firm has a market cap of $38.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 0.86.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The business services provider reported $1.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.64 by $0.10. Verisk Analytics had a net margin of 32.03% and a return on equity of 252.11%. The business had revenue of $716.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $722.45 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.51 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 6.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Verisk Analytics will post 6.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Verisk Analytics news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.38, for a total value of $55,476.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 16,408 shares in the company, valued at $4,551,251.04. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CFO Elizabeth Mann sold 200 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.38, for a total value of $55,476.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 16,408 shares in the company, valued at $4,551,251.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 326 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.22, for a total value of $88,743.72. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 7,470 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,033,483.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 726 shares of company stock worth $196,682 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on VRSK. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $250.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 25th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $243.00 to $260.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Verisk Analytics from $268.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $268.00 target price on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on Verisk Analytics from $278.00 to $263.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $273.54.

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.