Biondo Investment Advisors LLC Trims Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Biondo Investment Advisors LLC lowered its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 2,378 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 75 shares during the period. Biondo Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $752,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC now owns 2,291 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $724,000 after buying an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in Visa by 3.3% during the 4th quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 939 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $297,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,935 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $928,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Valmark Advisers Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Valmark Advisers Inc. now owns 7,251 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,292,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Strategic Family Wealth Counselors L.L.C. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Strategic Family Wealth Counselors L.L.C. now owns 7,283 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,302,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total value of $13,395,133.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,991,249.33. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on V. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Seaport Res Ptn raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. Five equities research 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.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $355.84.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $342.62 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The company has a market cap of $636.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.54, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The business’s 50 day moving average is $343.60 and its two-hundred day moving average is $315.06. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.79%.

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.