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Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

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Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Market Information

Verisk trades under the ticker symbol “VRSK” on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. Our common stock was first publicly traded on October 7, 2009. As of February 19, 2016, the closing price of our common stock was $67.95 per share, as reported by the NASDAQ Global Select Market. As of February 19, 2016, there were approximately 38 stockholders of record. We believe the number of beneficial owners is substantially greater than the number of record holders for, because a large portion of common stock is held in “street name” by brokers.

We have not paid or declared any cash dividends on our common stock during the two most recent fiscal years and we currently do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock. We do have a publicly announced share repurchase plan and have repurchased 46,310,780 shares since our IPO. As of December 31, 2015, we had 374,578,057 shares of treasury stock.

The following table shows the quarterly range of the closing high and low per share sales prices for our common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Select Market for the years ending December 31:

20152014
HighLowHighLow
Fourth Quarter$81.50$69.03$65.15$59.07
Third Quarter$78.60$70.77$64.77$59.42
Second Quarter$76.85$71.53$61.79$56.55
First Quarter$72.27$62.70$66.05$59.87

Performance Graph

The graph below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on $100 invested in our common stock, with the cumulative total return (assuming reinvestment of dividends) on $100 invested in each of the NASDAQ Composite Index, S&P 500 Index, an aggregate of peer issuers in the information industry used in last year’s statement, and a new group of aggregate of peer issuers in the information industry. The Company has selected a new peer group to include a broader selection of peer companies because of acquisitions and dispositions within Company’s lines of business. In this transition year, the table and the graph below include both the prior and new indices of peer companies. The prior peer issuers used for this graph are Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, Equifax Inc., Factset Research Systems Inc., Fair Isaac Corporation, IHS Inc, Morningstar, Inc., MSCI Inc., and Solera Holdings, Inc. The new peer issuers used for this graph are Equifax Inc., Factset Research Systems Inc., IHS Inc, MSCI Inc., Moody’s Corporation, McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., Nielsen Holdings plc, and Solera Holdings, Inc. Each peer issuer was weighted according to its respective market capitalization on December 31, 2010.

COMPARISON OF CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN

Assumes $100 Invested on December 31, 2010

Assumes Dividend Reinvested

Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2015

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Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

There were no unregistered sales of equity securities by the Company during 2015.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Our board of directors has authorized a share repurchase program, or Repurchase Program, up to $2.3 billion, including an additional authorization of $300.0 million announced on December 1, 2015. As of December 31, 2015, $469.4 million remains available for share repurchases. Under the Repurchase Program, we may repurchase stock in the market or as otherwise determined by us. These authorizations have no expiration dates and may be suspended or terminated at any time. Our shares repurchased for the quarter ended December 31, 2015 are set forth below:

PeriodTotal Number of Shares PurchasedAverage Price Paid per ShareTotal Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or ProgramsApproximate Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Programs
(in thousands)
October 1, 2015 through October 31, 2015—$——$189,807
November 1, 2015 through November 30, 2015248,153$73.10248,153$171,667
December 1, 2015 through December 31, 201531,300$73.9831,300$469,351
279,453279,453

In connection with the accelerated share repurchase program, or ASR program, upon payment of the aggregate purchase price in December 2014, we received an initial delivery of 6,372,472 shares of common stock. Upon final settlement of the ASR agreement in June 2015, we received an additional 809,021 shares of common stock.

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