Ameritas Advisory Services LLC Reduces Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ameritas Advisory Services LLC lowered its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 22.4% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 16,876 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 4,868 shares during the quarter. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $4,640,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Heritage Investors Management Corp boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 3.1% during the third quarter. Heritage Investors Management Corp now owns 42,370 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $11,650,000 after acquiring an additional 1,271 shares during the last quarter. Arthur M. Cohen & Associates LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 14.0% during the third quarter. Arthur M. Cohen & Associates LLC now owns 9,023 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,504,000 after acquiring an additional 1,105 shares during the last quarter. Hanlon Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 10.1% during the third quarter. Hanlon Investment Management Inc. now owns 907 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $249,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Pittenger & Anderson Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.7% during the third quarter. Pittenger & Anderson Inc. now owns 104,878 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $28,836,000 after acquiring an additional 697 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Management Corp VA boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.7% during the third quarter. Capital Management Corp VA now owns 35,433 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $9,742,000 after acquiring an additional 596 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $293.36 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $534.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.15, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $240.97 and a 1-year high of $296.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $281.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $273.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business 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 dividend of $0.59 per share. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.80%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 21.38%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on V shares. Mizuho increased their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Macquarie increased their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Compass Point initiated coverage on Visa in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price target on the stock. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

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.