Holderness Investments Co. Grows Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Holderness Investments Co. raised its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,163 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 380 shares during the quarter. Holderness Investments Co.’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,580,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in 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 worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,868,646,000 after buying an additional 718,558 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,188,862,000 after buying an additional 123,927 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $874,480.00. Following the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 103,855 shares of company stock valued at $35,165,827 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price target (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 1.5 %

V stock opened at $339.92 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $631.50 billion, a PE ratio of 34.27, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $339.38 and its 200-day simple moving average is $312.21.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

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.