Abel Hall LLC Cuts Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Abel Hall LLC decreased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.2% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 1,598 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 88 shares during the period. Abel Hall LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $439,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp grew its stake 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its position in Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% in 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. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Macquarie upped their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Susquehanna raised their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.6 %

NYSE V opened at $311.01 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $317.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $295.71 and a 200 day moving average price of $279.74. The company has a market cap of $579.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.19% 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.