Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ:VRSK – Get Free Report) and SS&C Technologies (NASDAQ:SSNC – Get Free Report) are both large-cap industrials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations and profitability.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
90.0% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.9% of SS&C Technologies shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Verisk Analytics shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 16.0% of SS&C Technologies shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares Verisk Analytics and SS&C Technologies”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Verisk Analytics | $3.07 billion | 8.31 | $908.30 million | $6.51 | 30.14 |
| SS&C Technologies | $6.27 billion | 3.07 | $796.90 million | $3.48 | 23.57 |
Verisk Analytics has higher earnings, but lower revenue than SS&C Technologies. SS&C Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Verisk Analytics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Profitability
This table compares Verisk Analytics and SS&C Technologies’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Verisk Analytics | 28.24% | -239.55% | 18.56% |
| SS&C Technologies | 12.76% | 21.74% | 7.25% |
Volatility & Risk
Verisk Analytics has a beta of 0.69, meaning that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SS&C Technologies has a beta of 1.09, meaning that its stock price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of recent recommendations for Verisk Analytics and SS&C Technologies, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Verisk Analytics | 0 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 2.53 |
| SS&C Technologies | 1 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 2.75 |
Verisk Analytics currently has a consensus target price of $224.79, suggesting a potential upside of 14.58%. SS&C Technologies has a consensus target price of $96.57, suggesting a potential upside of 17.76%. Given SS&C Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe SS&C Technologies is more favorable than Verisk Analytics.
Dividends
Verisk Analytics pays an annual dividend of $2.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. SS&C Technologies pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.5%. Verisk Analytics pays out 30.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. SS&C Technologies pays out 34.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Verisk Analytics has raised its dividend for 6 consecutive years and SS&C Technologies has raised its dividend for 9 consecutive years. SS&C Technologies is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.
Summary
SS&C Technologies beats Verisk Analytics on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Verisk Analytics
Verisk Analytics, Inc. provides data analytics and technology solutions to the insurance markets in the United States and internationally. It offers policy language, prospective loss costs, policy writing and rating rules, and various underwriting solutions for risk selection and segmentation, pricing, and workflow optimization; property- and auto- specific rating and underwriting information solutions that allows clients to understand, quantify, underwrite, mitigate, and avoid potential loss for risks; catastrophe modeling solutions, which enables companies to identify, quantify, and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophes for use by insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, financial institutions, and governments. The company also provides life insurance solutions for transforming current workflows in life insurance underwriting, claim insights, policy administration, unclaimed property/equity, compliance and fraud detection, and actuarial and portfolio modeling; Marketing Solutions, such as compliant, real-time decisioning, profitability, and risk assessment for inbound consumer interactions; and international underwriting and claims solutions. In addition, it offers claims insurance solutions, which provides analytics in fraud detection, compliance reporting, subrogation liability assessment, litigation, and repair cost estimation and valuation solutions; and casualty solutions, such as compliance, casualty claims decision support, and workflow automation solutions. Further, the company supplies software to the specialty insurance market. The company was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.
About SS&C Technologies
SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. engages in the development and provision of software solutions to the financial services and healthcare industries. It operates through the following geographical segments: United States, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Japan, Canada, and the Americas, excluding the United States and Canada. Its products include advent genesis, antares, asset allocators, AWD, axys, BANC mall, BRIX, DST vision, evare, lightning, and moxy. The company was founded by William Charles Stone in March 1986 and is headquartered in Windsor, CT.
Receive News & Ratings for Verisk Analytics Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Verisk Analytics and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
