Wells Fargo & Company Raises Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) Price Target to $325.00

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK) had its target price hoisted by stock analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $313.00 to $325.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “overweight” rating on the business services provider’s stock. Wells Fargo & Company‘s target price suggests a potential upside of 10.13% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on VRSK. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $263.00 to $276.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Verisk Analytics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Verisk Analytics from $285.00 to $301.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Barclays lowered shares of Verisk Analytics from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $310.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Friday, January 10th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Verisk Analytics presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $295.33.

Verisk Analytics Price Performance

VRSK opened at $295.11 on Friday. Verisk Analytics has a one year low of $217.34 and a one year high of $296.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.36, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $282.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $277.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 0.89.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Kathy Card Beckles sold 2,111 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.06, for a total value of $595,428.66. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 9,066 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,557,155.96. This trade represents a 18.89 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Bruce Edward Hansen sold 1,179 shares of Verisk Analytics stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $272.81, for a total transaction of $321,642.99. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 13,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,760,958.66. This trade represents a 7.88 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 4,469 shares of company stock worth $1,264,818 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 4th quarter worth about $526,676,000. Amundi boosted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 52.4% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 1,252,532 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $351,226,000 after buying an additional 430,719 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Verisk Analytics during the 4th quarter worth about $110,094,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 31,634.6% during the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 394,461 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $108,646,000 after buying an additional 393,218 shares during the period. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Verisk Analytics by 8.1% during the 4th quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 5,210,080 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,435,012,000 after buying an additional 392,270 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 90.00% of the company’s stock.

Verisk Analytics Company Profile

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.