Ellsworth Advisors LLC Decreases Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ellsworth Advisors LLC reduced its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 71.1% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 8,187 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 20,093 shares during the period. Ellsworth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,131,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. West Tower Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter valued at about $30,000. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 545.5% in the 3rd quarter. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC now owns 142 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Valued Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at about $37,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Barclays upped their target price on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. KeyCorp upped their target price on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. Mizuho reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $295.82.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 47,311 shares of company stock worth $12,832,129 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:V traded up $0.06 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $279.08. The stock had a trading volume of 5,844,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,182,342. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $279.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $258.66. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $216.14 and a 1-year high of $290.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $512.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.12, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The business’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.18 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.94%.

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.