40,153 Shares in VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) Purchased by Raymond James Financial Inc.

Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRSN) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 40,153 shares of the information services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,310,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in VeriSign in the third quarter valued at approximately $263,000. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG acquired a new position in VeriSign in the third quarter valued at approximately $392,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in VeriSign by 186.2% in the third quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 3,620 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $688,000 after acquiring an additional 2,355 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in VeriSign by 44.6% in the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 33,290 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $6,324,000 after acquiring an additional 10,262 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in VeriSign by 1.8% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 527,551 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $100,214,000 after acquiring an additional 9,574 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.90% of the company’s stock.

VeriSign Stock Performance

Shares of VRSN opened at $244.51 on Friday. VeriSign, Inc. has a one year low of $167.05 and a one year high of $245.67. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56 and a beta of 0.87. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $226.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $202.24.

VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The information services provider reported $2.00 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.00. VeriSign had a negative return on equity of 43.01% and a net margin of 50.47%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on VRSN shares. Citigroup boosted their price objective on VeriSign from $246.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Robert W. Baird upgraded VeriSign from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com cut VeriSign from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Baird R W upgraded VeriSign from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th.

Insider Buying and Selling at VeriSign

In other VeriSign news, SVP John Calys sold 447 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $231.75, for a total value of $103,592.25. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 23,735 shares in the company, valued at $5,500,586.25. This represents a 1.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.84% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.