McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC Sells 1,834 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC lessened its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 63.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,046 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,834 shares during the period. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $331,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% in 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% in 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 purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on V. Macquarie lifted their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 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. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Up 0.9 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $313.41 and its 200 day moving average is $288.73. The firm has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 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.