Douglas Lane & Associates LLC Reduces Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Douglas Lane & Associates LLC reduced its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.6% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 408,734 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 6,842 shares during the period. Visa makes up 1.5% of Douglas Lane & Associates LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 13th largest holding. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $112,381,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Hilltop National Bank bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter worth about $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter worth about $404,000. Davidson Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,588,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $12,761,000 after acquiring an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arjuna Capital lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V traded up $0.37 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $277.84. The stock had a trading volume of 4,746,446 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,363,829. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $274.16 and a 200 day moving average price of $272.66. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $228.03 and a fifty-two week high of $293.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $508.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.04, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The firm had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The business’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.16 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction 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 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on V shares. William Blair upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. TD Cowen reduced their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $312.04.

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.