VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) Stock Has Average Price Target of $333.00

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) has been given an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the six research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $333.00.

VRSN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Zacks Research cut shares of VeriSign from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 23rd. Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of VeriSign from $324.00 to $341.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 1st. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of VeriSign in a research report on Monday, September 21st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on VeriSign from $308.00 to $316.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 24th.

VeriSign Price Performance

VRSN stock opened at $286.90 on Tuesday. VeriSign has a 1-year low of $208.86 and a 1-year high of $312.48. The company has a market capitalization of $25.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.12 and a beta of 0.69. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $289.36 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $277.81.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.36 by $0.02. VeriSign had a net margin of 49.76% and a negative return on equity of 39.20%. The business had revenue of $434.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $433.19 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.21 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 6.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that VeriSign will post 9.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

VeriSign Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other VeriSign news, CEO D. Bidzos sold 3,300 shares of VeriSign stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $266.09, for a total value of $878,097.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 422,839 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $112,513,229.51. The trade was a 0.77% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last three months, insiders sold 39,550 shares of company stock worth $11,288,604. Company insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Fifth Third Bancorp grew its position in VeriSign by 208.5% in the 1st quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 13,385 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $3,324,000 after acquiring an additional 9,046 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of VeriSign during the second quarter valued at $2,116,154,000. Callan Family Office LLC bought a new position in shares of VeriSign in the second quarter worth about $944,000. Barclays PLC increased its stake in VeriSign by 40.4% in the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 454,292 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $110,370,000 after buying an additional 130,683 shares during the period. Finally, Westpac Banking Corp lifted its holdings in VeriSign by 149.8% during the 4th quarter. Westpac Banking Corp now owns 9,382 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,279,000 after buying an additional 5,626 shares in the last quarter. 92.90% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.