Insider Selling: VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) EVP Sells 614 Shares of Stock

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) EVP Thomas C. Indelicarto sold 614 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $190.00, for a total transaction of $116,660.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 41,955 shares in the company, valued at $7,971,450. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

VeriSign Stock Performance

NASDAQ VRSN opened at $185.43 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $192.22 and its 200-day moving average price is $201.47. VeriSign, Inc. has a 52-week low of $185.19 and a 52-week high of $229.72. The company has a market cap of $18.57 billion, a PE ratio of 23.41 and a beta of 0.88.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The information services provider reported $1.92 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.83 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $380.40 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $381.01 million. VeriSign had a net margin of 54.74% and a negative return on equity of 46.56%. On average, analysts forecast that VeriSign, Inc. will post 7.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On VeriSign

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of VRSN. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in VeriSign in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $207,161,000. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in VeriSign by 6.9% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 9,152,000 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,934,092,000 after acquiring an additional 587,635 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of VeriSign by 31.8% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,005,583 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $207,110,000 after buying an additional 242,604 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in shares of VeriSign by 14.7% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,826,836 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $369,989,000 after buying an additional 233,811 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of VeriSign by 99.0% during the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 442,523 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $89,624,000 after buying an additional 220,106 shares during the period. 92.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on VRSN shares. StockNews.com downgraded shares of VeriSign from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of VeriSign from $237.00 to $236.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, April 2nd.

VeriSign Company Profile

VeriSign, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides domain name registry services and internet infrastructure that enables internet navigation for various recognized domain names worldwide. The company enables the security, stability, and resiliency of internet infrastructure and services, including providing root zone maintainer services, operating two of thirteen internet root servers; and offering registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net domains, which supports global e-commerce.