Insider Selling: Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Insider Sells 33,741 Shares of Stock

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock traded up $0.78 on Friday, hitting $348.26. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,260,546 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,802,778. The company has a market capitalization of $648.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $351.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.12. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $320.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $295.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.68%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.79%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp grew its holdings in 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 buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third 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 period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Visa by 6.2% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,868,646,000 after purchasing an additional 718,558 shares during the period. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 1.1% in the 3rd 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 valued at $3,188,862,000 after purchasing an additional 123,927 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. TD Cowen upped their price target on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $354.73.

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.