Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Sold by Westwood Holdings Group Inc.

Westwood Holdings Group Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.0% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 263,704 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 98 shares during the period. Westwood Holdings Group Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $69,214,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in V. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Visa by 0.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after acquiring an additional 788,908 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares during the period. Capital World Investors grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 8,900,179 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,317,162,000 after purchasing an additional 166,767 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ninety One UK Ltd increased its position in Visa by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Ninety One UK Ltd now owns 7,867,958 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,065,103,000 after purchasing an additional 55,437 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently issued reports on V. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Evercore ISI lowered their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. BNP Paribas upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $310.22.

Visa Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $284.67 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $227.78 and a 12-month high of $293.07. The company has a market cap of $518.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $270.65 and its 200 day simple moving average is $273.49.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.16 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.24%.

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.