5,772 Shares in VeriSign, Inc. $VRSN Acquired by Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 5,772 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,452,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. DV Equities LLC acquired a new position in shares of VeriSign in the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Addison Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of VeriSign during the 2nd quarter worth $30,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. increased its holdings in shares of VeriSign by 429.2% during the 3rd quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 127 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 103 shares during the last quarter. PenderFund Capital Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of VeriSign in the 2nd quarter worth $40,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. raised its position in shares of VeriSign by 25.3% in the 1st quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 198 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $50,000 after buying an additional 40 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of VeriSign in a research report on Wednesday, June 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on VeriSign from $308.00 to $316.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 24th. Wedbush lifted their price objective on VeriSign from $318.00 to $324.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, July 24th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $328.75.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other VeriSign news, CEO D James Bidzos sold 3,300 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.47, for a total value of $981,651.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 439,339 shares in the company, valued at $130,690,172.33. This represents a 0.75% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 39,800 shares of company stock worth $11,020,624. Insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock.

VeriSign Trading Down 1.0%

NASDAQ:VRSN opened at $291.93 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.66 and a beta of 0.70. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $275.06 and its 200 day simple moving average is $266.37. VeriSign, Inc. has a twelve month low of $208.86 and a twelve month high of $312.48.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.38 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.36 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $434.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $433.19 million. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 39.20% and a net margin of 49.76%.The firm’s revenue was up 6.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.21 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that VeriSign, Inc. will post 9.56 earnings per share for the current year.

VeriSign Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 27th. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 19th were given 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 35.14%.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc (NASDAQ: VRSN) is an internet infrastructure company that operates critical components of the global Domain Name System (DNS) and provides cybersecurity-related services. The company is best known as the authoritative registry operator for the .com and .net top-level domains, maintaining the central databases and zone files that enable domain name resolution for millions of websites. VeriSign’s registry role is performed under contractual agreements with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and involves high-availability, highly secure operations to support continuous internet connectivity.

In addition to its registry business, VeriSign offers a suite of services designed to protect and accelerate DNS and internet traffic for enterprises and service providers.