Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Sold by Quartz Partners LLC

Quartz Partners LLC lessened its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 86.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 979 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 6,376 shares during the period. Quartz Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $309,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Swedbank AB lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 10.7% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,059,111 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $566,153,000 after purchasing an additional 199,440 shares during the period. Howard Capital Management Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.6% in the third quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after purchasing an additional 610 shares during the period. Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $228,000. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 7.8% in the third quarter. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,981 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $820,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares during the period. Finally, Concord Wealth Partners lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 9.6% in the third quarter. Concord Wealth Partners now owns 9,685 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,663,000 after purchasing an additional 852 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on V. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

V opened at $350.61 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $331.31 and its 200 day simple moving average is $304.27. 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 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $357.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $651.36 billion, a PE ratio of 35.34, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa 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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. Insiders have sold a total of 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.