Verisign Subject of Two Positive Analyst Notes, Shares Barely Move

Verisign (VRSN) today was the subject of a pair of bullish analyst notes.

Deutsche Bank’s Todd Raker raised his price target on the stock to $30 from $26. “We are incrementally more positive on the growth potential for Verisign over the next 12-36 months following our analysis of the emerging SSL [certificate] opportunity,” he wrote today. “While the stock has performed well lately, we believe upside potential to consensus exists as the SSL cert, .com pricing increase and cost restructuring initiatives gain clarity.” He continues to rate the stock Buy.

Pacific Crest’s Rob Owens today raised his target price on the stock to $33 from $27. Owens also boosted his 2007 EPS estimate to $1.10 a share from $1.07. He says domain name additions in the fourth quarter are “likely to exceed our 3.1million estimate…total .com and .net names are tracking at 65.1 million, well ahead of our 64.5 million forecast. This will likely add roughly $1 million in revenue and gives us confidence in our $418.5 million top-line estimate.”

Owens noted that VeriSign yesterday began selling its Extended Validation Certificates at prices “substantially higher than those of current certificates” He also sees strong growth in the company’s mobile content services group; he sees that segment growing more than 120% next year to $107 million in revenue. Not least, he sees a growing opportunity for the company in interactive television, with programs offering viewers to answer questions or vote via SMS messaging during live events. They provide the back-end voting platform, for instance, for Deal or No Deal and American Idol.

Despite the two notes, VeriSign closed up just 4 cents at $25.34 for a gain of 0.16%.

VRSN 1-yr chart: