Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Sells 774 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC lessened its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 130,693 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 774 shares during the period. Visa comprises 1.9% of Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 11th biggest holding. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $41,304,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of V. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the second 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. Employees Retirement System of Texas lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 128.7% in the second quarter. Employees Retirement System of Texas now owns 44,673 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $11,725,000 after acquiring an additional 25,140 shares during the period. Dundas Partners LLP lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 3.4% in the second quarter. Dundas Partners LLP now owns 147,604 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $38,741,000 after acquiring an additional 4,899 shares during the period. Drucker Wealth 3.0 LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the second quarter worth approximately $2,525,000. Finally, Delta Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 8.9% in the second quarter. Delta Investment Management LLC now owns 7,908 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,076,000 after acquiring an additional 648 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $328.18 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $314.14 and a 200 day simple moving average of $289.71. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $328.51. The company has a market capitalization of $611.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie lifted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. 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 company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.81.

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.