Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC Lowers Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC trimmed its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 46,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 915 shares during the period. Douglass Winthrop Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $14,575,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter worth $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 17,018.7% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after buying an additional 3,926,049 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on V shares. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price objective (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna upped their price objective on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total value of $13,395,133.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,991,249.33. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE:V opened at $339.10 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $339.91 and its 200-day moving average is $312.40. The company has a market cap of $629.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.18, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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