Hilton Capital Management LLC Decreases Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Hilton Capital Management LLC cut its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 97.5% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 875 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 34,090 shares during the quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $241,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. WFA Asset Management Corp raised its stake in Visa by 4.6% during the first quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 2,263 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $632,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the period. Rodgers Brothers Inc. grew its position in Visa by 64.0% in the first quarter. Rodgers Brothers Inc. now owns 1,857 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $518,000 after acquiring an additional 725 shares during the period. Guardian Capital LP grew its position in Visa by 5.8% in the first quarter. Guardian Capital LP now owns 2,691 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $751,000 after acquiring an additional 147 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased its stake in Visa by 441.8% during the first quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,052,442 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $293,716,000 after acquiring an additional 858,180 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Stonebridge Capital Advisors LLC raised its position in Visa by 3.1% in the first quarter. Stonebridge Capital Advisors LLC now owns 64,463 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $17,990,000 after purchasing an additional 1,913 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Down 1.4 %

V opened at $307.39 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $250.03 and a 12 month high of $312.44. The business has a 50-day moving average of $288.57 and a two-hundred day moving average of $276.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The stock has a market capitalization of $560.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.95.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. This represents a 94.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction 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.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on V. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $321.74.

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.