First Heartland Consultants Inc. Cuts Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

First Heartland Consultants Inc. lessened its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 14.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,526 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,265 shares during the quarter. First Heartland Consultants Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,069,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Visa by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after acquiring an additional 788,908 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value 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 approximately $148,687.06. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

V stock opened at $309.82 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $564.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.84, a PEG ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $284.64 and a 200 day simple moving average of $274.92. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $244.11 and a fifty-two week high of $312.44. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm 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 business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 21.38%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on V shares. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target 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.