Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC Decreases Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC reduced its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 12.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 406 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 60 shares during the period. Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $128,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. AdvisorShares Investments LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 4.3% in the second quarter. AdvisorShares Investments LLC now owns 1,695 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $446,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares in the last quarter. Qsemble Capital Management LP lifted its position in shares of Visa by 187.7% during the second quarter. Qsemble Capital Management LP now owns 15,550 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $4,081,000 after purchasing an additional 10,146 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 2.2% in the second quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 882,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $231,596,000 after purchasing an additional 19,232 shares in the last quarter. Y.D. More Investments Ltd increased its holdings in Visa by 9.4% in the second quarter. Y.D. More Investments Ltd now owns 17,109 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,490,000 after buying an additional 1,466 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Achmea Investment Management B.V. lifted its holdings in Visa by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. now owns 185,329 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $48,644,000 after buying an additional 6,253 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’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 SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America upped their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target 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. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $330.85.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock traded down $4.89 on Friday, reaching $307.71. The stock had a trading volume of 6,580,342 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,172,625. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $321.61. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $311.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $286.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The stock has a market cap of $573.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

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.