Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Stock Holdings Lowered by Artemis Investment Management LLP

Artemis Investment Management LLP reduced its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 7.8% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 20,716 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,741 shares during the quarter. Artemis Investment Management LLP’s holdings in Visa were worth $6,547,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Custom Index Systems LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth approximately $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth approximately $616,000. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth approximately $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 5.2% in the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC increased its position in shares of Visa by 5,034.0% in the third quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,499,000 after acquiring an additional 55,273 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

V has been the topic of several analyst reports. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61. The company has a 50 day moving average of $313.41 and a 200-day moving average of $288.73. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.33 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Visa 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.