WealthTrust Asset Management LLC Lowers Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

WealthTrust Asset Management LLC lessened its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.0% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 3,773 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 40 shares during the quarter. WealthTrust Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $990,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. National Bank of Canada FI raised its position in shares of Visa by 787.1% in the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after purchasing an additional 4,099,122 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $511,321,000. GQG Partners LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 40.1% in the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,671,866,000 after buying an additional 1,715,686 shares during the last quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 26,951.9% in the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 1,587,944 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $416,788,000 after buying an additional 1,582,074 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 14,306.3% during the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,500,270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $390,595,000 after buying an additional 1,489,856 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $285.25 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $270.27 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $273.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $519.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.87, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $227.78 and a 1-year high of $293.07.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.16 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.24%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Bank of America boosted their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. BNP Paribas raised Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. William Blair raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, TD Cowen lowered their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $310.22.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa 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.