WestEnd Advisors LLC Decreases Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

WestEnd Advisors LLC decreased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.1% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 151,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 3,258 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up 1.1% of WestEnd Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 22nd largest position. WestEnd Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $39,405,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of V. Well Done LLC boosted its position in Visa by 14.1% in the fourth quarter. Well Done LLC now owns 2,450 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $638,000 after buying an additional 302 shares during the last quarter. Cornell Pochily Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Visa by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Cornell Pochily Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 6,720 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,750,000 after buying an additional 68 shares during the last quarter. Procyon Advisors LLC boosted its position in Visa by 5.8% in the fourth quarter. Procyon Advisors LLC now owns 58,398 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,204,000 after buying an additional 3,191 shares during the last quarter. First National Corp MA ADV boosted its position in Visa by 14.4% in the fourth quarter. First National Corp MA ADV now owns 3,836 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $999,000 after buying an additional 482 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $427,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total value of $2,228,128.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129 in the last three months. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE V traded up $0.57 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $279.59. 2,670,151 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 5,597,521. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $216.14 and a 52-week high of $290.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $513.47 billion, a PE ratio of 32.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $278.86 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $258.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.18 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.94%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on V. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. UBS Group upped their price objective on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Barclays upped their target price on Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Finally, Wedbush upped their target price on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $295.82.

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services.