Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co. Decreases Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co. reduced its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 21,980 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,490 shares during the period. Lockheed Martin Investment Management Co.’s holdings in Visa were worth $7,804,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at about $3,518,533,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $56,452,949,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,088 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 17.7% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,979,720 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,847,953,000 after purchasing an additional 1,651,954 shares during the last quarter. MUFG Securities EMEA plc purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at about $373,240,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 7.2% in the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 14,277,146 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,003,569,000 after purchasing an additional 955,392 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of several research reports. UBS Group set a $425.00 target price on Visa and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Erste Group Bank downgraded Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, September 22nd. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 22nd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $400.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total transaction of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $183,815.10. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $341.07 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $625.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 0.90. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $344.78 and a 200-day simple moving average of $348.40. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $287.19 and a 12-month high of $375.51. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.60 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 60.31% and a net margin of 50.15%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.67 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.11%.

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.