VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) EVP Thomas Indelicarto Sells 500 Shares of Company Stock

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) EVP Thomas Indelicarto sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $293.14, for a total value of $146,570.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 31,895 shares in the company, valued at $9,349,700.30. This represents a 1.54% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a 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.

VeriSign Stock Performance

Shares of VeriSign stock opened at $303.74 on Friday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $290.68 and a 200-day simple moving average of $279.83. VeriSign, Inc. has a one year low of $208.86 and a one year high of $312.48. The company has a market cap of $27.43 billion, a PE ratio of 32.94 and a beta of 0.69.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 23rd. The information services provider reported $2.38 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.36 by $0.02. VeriSign had a net margin of 49.76% and a negative return on equity of 39.20%. The firm had revenue of $434.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $433.19 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.21 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 6.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that VeriSign, Inc. will post 9.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

VeriSign Announces Dividend

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

Institutional Trading of VeriSign

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Fifth Third Bancorp increased its stake 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 buying an additional 9,046 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in VeriSign during the 2nd quarter worth $2,116,154,000. Callan Family Office LLC acquired a new stake in shares of VeriSign in the 2nd quarter worth $944,000. Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in shares of VeriSign by 40.4% in the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 454,292 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $110,370,000 after acquiring an additional 130,683 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wick Capital Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at about $58,396,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on VRSN shares. Zacks Research downgraded shares of VeriSign from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 23rd. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of VeriSign in a research note on Monday, September 21st. Wedbush lifted their price target on VeriSign from $324.00 to $341.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on VeriSign from $308.00 to $316.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, July 24th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $333.00.

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.