Meridian Wealth Partners LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Meridian Wealth Partners LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,507 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 38 shares during the quarter. Meridian Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $476,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of 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 grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.6% in the third quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $29,242,000 after purchasing an additional 610 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 5,733,284 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,576,366,000 after purchasing an additional 411,210 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 14.7% in the third quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. now owns 36,905 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,147,000 after purchasing an additional 4,726 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.9% in the third quarter. CFS Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 3,334 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $917,000 after purchasing an additional 93 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total transaction of $13,395,133.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,991,249.33. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961 in the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the topic of several recent research reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $336.51 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $366.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $625.15 billion, a PE ratio of 33.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $340.48 and a two-hundred day moving average of $313.06.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. On average, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

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.