Manning & Napier Advisors LLC Sells 48,975 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Manning & Napier Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 716,963 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 48,975 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for approximately 2.6% of Manning & Napier Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest holding. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $226,589,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Czech National Bank boosted its position in Visa by 13.4% during the third quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 340,238 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $93,548,000 after purchasing an additional 40,268 shares during the period. Unique Wealth LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 16.7% during the 3rd quarter. Unique Wealth LLC now owns 8,170 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,246,000 after buying an additional 1,171 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. Farmers Trust Co. grew its stake in Visa by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Farmers Trust Co. now owns 25,773 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $7,086,000 after buying an additional 154 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Delta Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Delta Financial Group Inc. now owns 7,673 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,110,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were 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. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on Visa from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. UBS Group lifted their target price on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $352.27.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $342.05 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $317.09 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $292.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $637.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $351.25.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its 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 return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.