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

Marietta Investment Partners LLC cut its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,552 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 225 shares during the period. Marietta Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,123,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of 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 buying an additional 718,558 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the third 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 worth $3,188,862,000 after buying an additional 123,927 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total value of $13,395,133.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,991,249.33. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $363.00, for a total value of $3,129,060.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $194,931. The trade was a 94.14 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961 over the last ninety days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on V. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $336.51 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market capitalization of $625.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $340.48 and its 200-day simple moving average is $312.82. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released 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%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.70%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Visa 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.