BHK Investment Advisors LLC Reduces Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

BHK Investment Advisors LLC reduced its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 27.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 655 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 243 shares during the quarter. BHK Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $207,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Swedbank AB grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 10.7% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,059,111 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $566,153,000 after purchasing an additional 199,440 shares during the last quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC boosted its position in Visa by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after buying an additional 610 shares during the period. Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $228,000. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 7.8% in the 3rd quarter. Investment Partners Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,981 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $820,000 after acquiring an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Concord Wealth Partners increased its position in shares of Visa by 9.6% during the third quarter. Concord Wealth Partners now owns 9,685 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,663,000 after acquiring an additional 852 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on V. Barclays boosted their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. Raymond James reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $393.00 target price (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price target on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Citigroup reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $350.61 on Thursday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $331.31 and a 200 day moving average of $304.27. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $357.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $651.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.79%.

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.