Artemis Investment Management LLP Decreases Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Artemis Investment Management LLP lessened its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 7.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 20,716 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,741 shares during the period. Artemis Investment Management LLP’s holdings in Visa were worth $6,547,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 101.4% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $321.61. The company has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $313.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $288.73.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

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.