Abel Hall LLC Reduces Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Abel Hall LLC trimmed its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,598 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 88 shares during the quarter. Abel Hall LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $439,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% in 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 buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in Visa by 1.1% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,188,862,000 after acquiring an additional 123,927 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were 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 $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on V. Susquehanna boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company 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, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.6 %

NYSE:V opened at $311.01 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $579.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $317.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $295.71 and a 200-day simple moving average of $279.74.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.