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VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) heads into the December 1, 2025 U.S. market open after a Black Friday volume spike, fresh institutional and insider filings, and new analyst fair‑value calls. Here’s a full pre‑market briefing on the stock price, news, analysis and forecasts from November 28–30, 2025.
Where VeriSign’s stock stands before Monday’s open
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) last traded at about $251.99 per share after the early‑close Black Friday session on Friday, November 28, 2025. Historical feeds from Yahoo Finance and other price providers show a close at $251.99 at 1:00 p.m. EST, in line with the shortened post‑Thanksgiving schedule. [1]
During that session, VRSN changed hands between roughly $251.4 and $254.7, opening near $252.7, with total volume close to 1.8 million shares, well above recent averages. [2]
Across major data platforms, the 52‑week range for VeriSign now runs from the mid‑$180s at the low end to just above $310 at the July 2025 high, leaving the stock trading roughly 18–20% below its peak as it heads into December. [3]
Despite that drawdown from the summer high, the stock is up around 23% year‑to‑date, according to a November 30 valuation note from Simply Wall St, which framed the 2025 rally as a 22.9% YTD surge. [4]
On valuation, most sources cluster VRSN around 28–30x trailing earnings, with a market capitalization near $23.4–23.5 billion, a dividend yield of roughly 1.2–1.3% on an annualized $3.08 per‑share payout, and a beta under 1.0, reflecting lower volatility than the broader tech sector. [5]
Over the weekend, international platforms such as Investing.com still show VRSN indicated around Friday’s close near $252, suggesting no major pre‑market repricing yet ahead of the Monday, December 1, 2025 U.S. open. [6]
News recap (November 28–30, 2025): What changed for VRSN?
Between November 28 and 30, coverage of VeriSign has been dominated by three themes:
- A Black Friday volume spike and a still‑soft technical picture
- A flurry of institutional repositioning filings
- Ongoing insider selling layered on top of a fresh fundamental and valuation debate
Let’s unpack each.
1. Black Friday volume spike and technical setup
A November 29 MarketBeat note flagged unusually strong trading volume in VeriSign on Black Friday: about 1.37 million shares, roughly 56% above the prior session’s 880,000‑share volume. The stock traded around $253.40 intraday, while sitting below both its 50‑day moving average (≈$259) and 200‑day moving average (≈$272). [7]
That same piece highlighted:
- Market cap: about $23.5 billion
- Trailing P/E: roughly 29.5x
- Beta: around 0.76
- Institutional ownership: close to 92.9% of the float
In other words, Friday’s action looked more like a liquidity surge in a heavily institution‑owned, low‑beta compounder than a speculative spike. [8]
A separate November 29 deep‑dive from TechStock² (TS²) pulled the picture together: VRSN’s price is sitting below key moving averages and well under its 2025 highs, but not because earnings collapsed. Instead, the article frames the pressure as a mix of supply from Berkshire Hathaway’s big July selldown, recent institutional trimming, and steady insider selling, against a backdrop of resilient fundamentals. TechStock²+1
2. Big‑money investors reshuffle their VeriSign positions
From November 28–30, a stream of 13F‑driven headlines showed both accumulation and profit‑taking in VRSN among large funds:
- Russell Investments Group Ltd.
- Increased its stake by 21.6% in Q2, buying about 68,029 shares.
- Now holds roughly 383,179 shares, or 0.41% of the company, valued at about $110.7 million. [9]
- BLI Banque de Luxembourg Investments
- Disclosed a new position of 47,400 shares, worth roughly $13.6 million, about 0.05% of the company. [10]
- Neuberger Berman Group LLC
- Boosted its position by 266.4% in Q2 to 29,044 shares, a stake worth roughly $8.4 million. [11]
On the other side of the ledger:
- Schroder Investment Management Group
- Trimmed its VRSN stake by 4.7%, selling 45,170 shares, and now holds about 920,286 shares, or just under 1% of the company, valued around $265.8 million. [12]
- JPMorgan Chase & Co.
- Cut its holdings by 17,990 shares (‑4.4%) in Q2, leaving 393,415 shares, or roughly 0.42% of VeriSign, worth about $113.6 million at the time of filing. [13]
- Inceptionr LLC
- Reduced its small position by 55.6%, selling 2,151 shares and ending the quarter with 1,719 shares worth about $496,000. [14]
Collectively, these November 28–30 headlines reinforce one key point: VeriSign is overwhelmingly an institutional story. The largest holders include Vanguard, AQR, Geode and Amundi, and about 93% of the float is in the hands of funds and other professional investors. [15]
3. Insider selling adds to the supply narrative
Institutional rotation is being watched alongside a steady drip of insider selling:
- On November 28, director Timothy Tomlinson filed a Form 144 indicating plans to sell 1,590 shares of VRSN through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. [16]
- A Form 4 summarized by Rhea‑AI and StockTitan on November 20 showed Executive Chairman, President and CEO D. James Bidzos selling 9,000 shares across trades on November 18–20, part of a broader pattern of 2025 disposals. [17]
- MarketBeat’s November 28 and 29 coverage notes that company insiders have sold about 47,839 shares, worth roughly $12.7 million, over the last 90 days, and that insiders now hold only around 0.84% of outstanding stock. [18]
TS²’s November 29 analysis connects these dots with earlier sales, estimating that Bidzos has sold on the order of 100,000+ shares over the past year with no offsetting open‑market purchases, and flags the fresh Tomlinson Form 144 as another data point investors are monitoring. TechStock²
While some or all of these transactions may be executed under pre‑scheduled 10b5‑1 plans, the optics of continued insider selling in a year when Berkshire Hathaway also cut its stake (more on that below) are contributing to a perception of incremental supply and cautious management sentiment.
4. Fresh valuation calls: “fairly valued” or still upside left?
On November 30, Simply Wall St published a new piece titled “Is VeriSign Still a Smart Bet After 22.9% Year‑to‑Date Surge?” The core takeaway:
- VRSN’s trailing P/E is about 28.8x, just under their internally defined “fair ratio” of 30x.
- On that basis, they describe the stock as “about right” – not screamingly cheap, but reasonably priced for its quality and growth profile. [19]
Earlier in November, the same outlet’s DCF‑style work had pointed to a fair value around $295–296 per share, implying mid‑teens percentage upside from prices in the low‑$250s, but the latest update leans more toward “fair value” after the recent run‑up. TechStock²
A separate late‑November breakdown from DCFModeling.com takes a more explicitly quantitative approach:
- TTM P/E: ≈28.7x, below a cited peer average around 41.5x
- EV/EBITDA: ≈21.6x
- Dividend yield: ≈1.23%, with a payout ratio near 36%
- 52‑week range: roughly $177–$311
- And an explicit view that Wall Street’s ≈$281.7 average 12‑month target implies about 12% upside from a reference price in the low‑$250s. [20]
The overarching message from November 28–30 valuation coverage: VeriSign is widely seen as a high‑quality, high‑margin “tollbooth” business that now trades at a solid but not extravagant multiple. Short‑term performance is being dominated by who’s selling and buying the stock, not by a sudden change in the business model.
Fundamentals: what Q3 2025 tells us about VeriSign
Underneath the flows and charts, the Q3 2025 numbers remain the anchor for most analysis.
According to the October 23 earnings release:
- Revenue:$419 million, up 7.3% year‑on‑year
- Operating income:$284 million, up from $269 million a year earlier
- Net income:$213 million
- Diluted EPS:$2.27, versus $2.07 in Q3 2024 [21]
Cash generation and capital returns stayed robust:
- Cash from operations:$308 million for the quarter
- Share repurchases: about 0.8 million shares bought back for $215 million
- Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities:$618 million at quarter‑end
- Remaining buyback authorization:$1.33 billion with no expiration date [22]
On the core domain business:
- The .com and .net domain base ended Q3 at 171.9 million names, up 1.4% year‑on‑year, with net adds of 1.45 million in the quarter.
- New registrations were 10.6 million, versus 9.3 million a year ago.
- The final renewal rate for Q2 2025 was 75.5%, up from 72.7% in Q2 2024. [23]
Guidance and external modeling for FY 2025 frame the year this way:
- Revenue guidance: roughly $1.652–$1.657 billion
- Operating income guidance: around $1.119–$1.124 billion
- Domain base growth:2.2–2.5%, an upgrade from earlier expectations
- Consensus EPS for 2025: about $8.9 per share
- Capex: an extremely light $25–35 million, meaning a very high conversion of operating income into free cash flow [24]
These figures reinforce VeriSign’s long‑standing profile: slow‑and‑steady top‑line growth, very high margins, modest capital intensity, and an aggressive capital‑return program.
Wall Street forecasts and price targets (late November 2025 snapshot)
Across the November 28–30 timeframe, several data providers updated or reiterated their VRSN forecasts:
- MarketBeat
- Consensus rating:“Moderate Buy”
- Average 12‑month price target:$281.67
- Range: low $250, high $325
- Implied upside: about 11–12% from prices around $252 [25]
- MarketWatch analyst estimates
- Lists an average target price near $310.67 from 7 analysts, with an “Overweight”‑style aggregate recommendation. [26]
- MarketScreener
- Shows a “Mean consensus: OUTPERFORM” from 4 analysts.
- Average target price:$295.50, with a high of $337 and a low of $250.
- From a last close just above $252, that implies roughly 17% upside to the mean target. [27]
- Public.com
- As of November 30, reports a Buy consensus from 3 analysts, with a 2025 price prediction around $275 per share. [28]
- IndMoney & TickerNerd
Put together, most late‑November forecasts cluster between the high‑$270s and high‑$290s, with outliers up into the low‑$300s. The Street is not unanimous, but the central tendency is “quality compounder with mid‑teens upside over 12 months,” not a broken story.
The Berkshire overhang and regulatory watch
Two structural storylines keep appearing in recent analysis and will matter for 2026‑oriented investors.
Berkshire Hathaway’s trimmed stake
On July 29, 2025, Reuters reported that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold almost one‑third of its VeriSign stake, offering 4.3 million shares at $285 in a secondary sale that reduced its holding from 14.2% to about 9.6%. An additional 515,032 shares may still be sold, and the remaining stake is subject to a 365‑day lockup. [31]
That sale knocked the stock down roughly 6–7% in the short term and has since become a recurring talking point in coverage, including the November 29 TS² piece, which describes a “Buffett overhang” layered on top of other selling pressure. TechStock²+1
The prevailing interpretation in both Reuters and equity research is that Berkshire’s move was driven more by regulatory and portfolio‑management considerations (staying under the 10% threshold, redeploying cash) than by a collapse in VeriSign’s fundamentals. [32]
ICANN, LOIs and .web
DCFModeling’s November health check on VRSN highlights a second medium‑term risk: regulatory and contract exposure. Key points:
- VeriSign’s contractual relationship with ICANN for the .com and .net registries is the backbone of its moat and revenue stream.
- A Letter of Intent (LOI) tied to those arrangements is noted as expiring on December 31, 2025, requiring fresh attention to the security and stability framework around .com and .net. [33]
- ICANN’s next major round of new generic top‑level domains (gTLDs) is expected around Q2 2026, which could introduce additional, if gradual, competitive pressure. [34]
Meanwhile, VeriSign’s own Q3 call transcript, as summarized by The Motley Fool and TS², indicates that the long‑running .web litigation remains unresolved; a hearing was slated for mid‑November 2025, but the company has not yet announced a material outcome. [35]
None of these issues have changed the near‑term income statement, but they frame the risk side of the VeriSign thesis as we move into 2026.
Pre‑market view for December 1, 2025: Themes to watch
As investors line up for the Monday, December 1, 2025 open, three narratives from the November 28–30 news flow look most important.
1. Fundamentals vs. flows
Fundamentals remain strong:
- Consistent mid‑single‑digit revenue growth
- Net margins near 50% and very high operating margins
- Rising domain base and renewal rates
- Significant free‑cash‑flow generation, with Q3 buybacks of $215 million and a new $0.77 quarterly dividend implying an annual yield around 1.2% [36]
But flows are clearly in focus:
- Heavy institutional ownership (~93%) means price action is heavily driven by fund behavior. [37]
- JPMorgan, Schroder and smaller funds have reported stake reductions. [38]
- Russell Investments, Neuberger Berman and BLI have been adding, suggesting some large buyers still see upside at current levels. [39]
- Insiders have been net sellers over the last quarter, albeit from relatively small ownership bases. [40]
Heading into Monday’s session, the base case looks like a tug‑of‑war between:
- Long‑term holders who focus on VeriSign’s monopoly‑like economics and free cash flow, and
- Short‑term traders reacting to supply from Berkshire, institutional trims, and insider exits.
2. Valuation risk vs. upside potential
Across MarketBeat, MarketWatch, MarketScreener, IndMoney, TickerNerd, Simply Wall St, and DCFModeling, late‑November targets and fair‑value models generally cluster in the $275–$300 range, with outliers higher and lower. [41]
With the stock around $252, that implies low‑ to high‑teens percentage upside over 12 months in most published scenarios, contingent on:
- Domain base growth staying in the 2–3% zone
- ICANN arrangements remaining stable
- Ongoing price increases on .com /.net wholesale rates being allowed under existing contracts
- Capital returns (dividends and buybacks) continuing at or near current levels
At the same time, multiple analyses caution that VRSN is not cheap in absolute terms – a near‑30x P/E and low‑20s EV/EBITDA multiple price in continued execution. [42]
3. Near‑term technical setup
From a purely technical angle, late‑November data show:
- Price sitting below the 50‑day and 200‑day moving averages after the summer peak
- Black Friday’s 56% volume spike pushing more shares through the market without breaking those resistance levels
- A year‑to‑date gain of about 23%, but with choppy performance since Berkshire’s July sale [43]
That cocktail often points to one of two short‑term paths:
- A range‑bound consolidation around $240–$260 as the market digests flow data, or
- A more decisive move if any new catalyst emerges — for example, a major tech rally, a surprise regulatory announcement, or another large holder shifting stance.
None of those outcomes is guaranteed, but it explains why traders will be watching Monday’s opening volume and early tape action closely.
What to watch in the week ahead
If you’re tracking VRSN into and beyond the December 1, 2025 open, here are the practical checkpoints:
- Opening print and first‑hour volume
- Does volume remain elevated versus the 50‑day average, or does it normalize after Black Friday’s spike? [44]
- New 13F and Form 4 filings
- Any fresh filings from Berkshire, major asset managers, or insiders could extend the current “supply” narrative. [45]
- Updates from ICANN or on .web litigation
- Any clarity on the LOI expiring December 31, 2025 or on the .web dispute would likely move the stock given VeriSign’s concentration in .com/.net. [46]
- Macro and rate moves
- As a cash‑generating, lower‑beta tech “utility,” VRSN can sometimes trade like a defensive growth name; shifts in rate expectations or risk appetite across tech could impact multiples. [47]
- Any commentary from management
- Even small remarks about domain demand, pricing, or capital allocation at industry events or in interviews could reshape the market’s expectations heading into the next earnings call, currently pencilled in for early February 2026. [48]
Bottom line
As of the pre‑market window before the December 1, 2025 open, VeriSign sits at the intersection of:
- Durable, high‑margin fundamentals and
- Complex ownership dynamics involving Berkshire, large institutions and steady insider selling.
Most late‑November research still frames VRSN as a high‑quality franchise with modest upside from current levels, but near‑term trading is likely to remain sensitive to who is buying and selling, not just how many domains get registered.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research or consult a licensed financial adviser before making trading or investment decisions.
References
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