Insider Buying: Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) CEO Buys $126,488.50 in Stock

Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI) CEO Ryan Steelberg bought 148,810 shares of Veritone stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The stock was purchased at an average price of $0.85 per share, with a total value of $126,488.50. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer directly owned 730,284 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $620,741.40. This represents a 25.59% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link.

Veritone Stock Performance

NASDAQ:VERI opened at $0.80 on Thursday. Veritone, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $0.79 and a fifty-two week high of $9.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $80.50 million, a P/E ratio of -2.11 and a beta of 2.29. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $1.18 and its 200-day simple moving average is $1.94.

Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 13th. The company reported ($0.11) EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.11). Veritone had a negative net margin of 111.90% and a negative return on equity of 159.15%. The firm had revenue of $24.26 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $28.29 million.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. UBS Group started coverage on Veritone in a research note on Monday, June 1st. They set a “neutral” rating and a $2.50 price target on the stock. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Veritone from a “strong sell” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Veritone from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC cut their price target on shares of Veritone to $5.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $6.12.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Veritone

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Veritone by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 480,842 shares of the company’s stock valued at $606,000 after acquiring an additional 19,597 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Veritone by 63.1% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,754,165 shares of the company’s stock valued at $13,275,000 after purchasing an additional 1,065,460 shares during the last quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Veritone in the third quarter valued at $82,000. Franklin Resources Inc. acquired a new stake in Veritone during the 3rd quarter worth about $50,000. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP grew its position in Veritone by 16,314.3% during the 3rd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,676,397 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,080,000 after purchasing an additional 1,666,184 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 39.18% of the company’s stock.

About Veritone

Veritone, Inc (NASDAQ: VERI) is a technology company specializing in artificial intelligence solutions for media, legal, government and enterprise applications. Its flagship offering, aiWARE™, is a cloud-based operating system that orchestrates and automates an ecosystem of machine learning models to transform unstructured data—such as audio, video and text—into actionable intelligence. By providing a modular AI environment, Veritone enables organizations to deploy, manage and scale cognitive engines that address diverse use cases from transcription and translation to sentiment analysis and facial recognition.

Through aiWARE and its suite of purpose-built applications, the company delivers turnkey solutions for content licensing, media monitoring, eDiscovery, compliance and public safety.