Braun Bostich & Associates Inc. Trims Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Braun Bostich & Associates Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.8% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 1,292 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 37 shares during the quarter. Braun Bostich & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $408,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in Visa by 1.1% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,188,862,000 after purchasing an additional 123,927 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Macquarie increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $334.58.

Visa Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE:V opened at $330.20 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $615.11 billion, a PE ratio of 33.94, a P/E/G ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $331.09. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $314.54 and its 200 day moving average price is $289.98. 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 announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.