Private Client Services LLC Trims Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Private Client Services LLC lessened its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.8% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,756 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 33 shares during the period. Private Client Services LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $555,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of V. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its position in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 7.7% in the third 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 purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Macquarie lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $329.70.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Visa Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE:V traded up $1.55 on Wednesday, reaching $313.22. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,691,117 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,745,194. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $321.61. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $310.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $286.27. The firm has a market cap of $583.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. 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 issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm 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%. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

About Visa

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.