Blume Capital Management Inc. Cuts Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Blume Capital Management Inc. decreased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 11.5% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 412 shares during the period. Blume Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,004,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Aviso Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. Aviso Financial Inc. now owns 284,617 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $89,950,000 after purchasing an additional 7,764 shares during the period. May Barnhard Investments LLC bought a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter worth about $383,000. Atala Financial Inc purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $918,000. LBP AM SA grew its position in shares of Visa by 5.0% during the 4th quarter. LBP AM SA now owns 767,189 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $242,462,000 after acquiring an additional 36,454 shares during the period. Finally, Parnassus Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 2,622.9% during the 4th quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 260,174 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $82,225,000 after purchasing an additional 250,619 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of V opened at $327.98 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $366.54. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $337.62 and a 200-day moving average price of $310.18. The firm has a market cap of $609.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.06, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 64,505 shares of company stock valued at $22,290,507. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the topic of several research reports. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

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.