VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The information services provider reported $2.00 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.00, Zacks reports. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 45.59% and a net margin of 55.74%.

VeriSign Stock Performance

VeriSign stock traded down $0.73 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $220.18. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 889,911 shares, compared to its average volume of 712,371. VeriSign has a 12 month low of $167.04 and a 12 month high of $222.25. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $204.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $190.11. The company has a market capitalization of $21.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.60 and a beta of 0.90.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on VRSN. Baird R W upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $200.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup upped their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 7th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Danny R. Mcpherson sold 2,092 shares of VeriSign stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.43, for a total value of $402,563.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 26,157 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,033,391.51. This trade represents a 7.41 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.84% of the company’s stock.

About VeriSign

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.