Fairscale Capital LLC Trims Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Fairscale Capital LLC lowered its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.6% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 7,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 43 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up about 2.0% of Fairscale Capital LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 8th biggest holding. Fairscale Capital LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,349,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 17,018.7% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,248,079,000 after purchasing an additional 3,926,049 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in the third 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 last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in 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 period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $345.79 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $366.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The company has a market capitalization of $642.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.86, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a fifty day moving average of $336.18 and a 200 day moving average of $308.92.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) 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, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

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. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on V. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 target price (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was 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 SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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. Over the last three months, insiders sold 64,505 shares of company stock valued at $22,290,507. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.