Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC Sells 3,242 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC lowered its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 23.7% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 10,412 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 3,242 shares during the quarter. Richard Bernstein Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $3,291,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC grew its stake in Visa by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC now owns 19,422 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,138,000 after purchasing an additional 337 shares in the last quarter. JFG Wealth Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. JFG Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,451 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $459,000 after purchasing an additional 88 shares in the last quarter. Provident Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $200,000. Kirtland Hills Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Kirtland Hills Capital Management LLC now owns 13,255 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,189,000 after buying an additional 297 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter worth $27,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on V. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 price target (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $393.00 target price (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 1.4 %

V stock opened at $355.56 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $360.31. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $332.12 and a 200 day simple moving average of $304.62. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market cap of $660.55 billion, a PE ratio of 35.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

About Visa

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.