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

Bristlecone Advisors LLC decreased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 24,504 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 200 shares during the quarter. Bristlecone Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $7,744,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of V. Wesbanco Bank Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Wesbanco Bank Inc. now owns 8,367 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,301,000 after acquiring an additional 114 shares in the last quarter. Creative Planning raised its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 566,729 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $155,822,000 after purchasing an additional 13,318 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB boosted its position in Visa by 10.7% during the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,059,111 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $566,153,000 after purchasing an additional 199,440 shares in the last quarter. Prospect Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the third quarter valued at $357,000. Finally, Petredis Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 0.3% in the third quarter. Petredis Investment Advisors LLC now owns 22,219 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,109,000 after buying an additional 75 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie upped their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Susquehanna raised their price target on Visa from $375.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $354.73.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $351.43 on Thursday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $322.53 and its 200 day moving average price is $297.52. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $352.12. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $652.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.43, a PEG ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.67%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa 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 sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $874,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.