Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Sold by Altfest L J & Co. Inc.

Altfest L J & Co. Inc. cut its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 6,525 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 302 shares during the period. Altfest L J & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,699,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in Visa by 2.5% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 126,912,205 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $30,139,110,000 after buying an additional 3,070,682 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Visa by 1.7% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 74,133,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $17,605,106,000 after buying an additional 1,235,891 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its position in Visa by 13.0% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,621,287,000 after buying an additional 5,864,340 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in Visa by 4.7% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $11,582,785,000 after buying an additional 2,257,605 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 116,608.6% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 24,504,130 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,090,978,000 after purchasing an additional 24,483,134 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total value of $2,228,128.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 47,311 shares of company stock worth $12,832,129 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on V shares. Wedbush boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Redburn Atlantic restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $307.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $243.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.82.

Visa Price Performance

NYSE V traded down $2.15 on Wednesday, reaching $278.45. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,054,187 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,592,870. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $216.14 and a twelve month high of $290.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45. The stock has a market cap of $511.38 billion, a PE ratio of 32.00, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $278.54 and its two-hundred day moving average is $258.27.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

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 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%.

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.