S.A. Mason LLC Reduces Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

S.A. Mason LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,679 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 74 shares during the quarter. S.A. Mason LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,218,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BCK Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $2,717,000. Markel Corp boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Markel Corp now owns 961,105 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $213,144,000 after purchasing an additional 3,065 shares during the last quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $2,323,000. Ergoteles LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth approximately $538,000. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth approximately $1,496,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently commented on V shares. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of Visa from $243.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $307.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $295.82.

Visa Price Performance

V stock traded down $2.30 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $278.30. The company had a trading volume of 1,331,554 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,579,946. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The business has a 50 day moving average of $278.54 and a 200 day moving average of $258.27. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $216.14 and a fifty-two week high of $290.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $511.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.00, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The firm had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.18 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total transaction of $2,228,128.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 47,311 shares of company stock worth $12,832,129. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company 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.