Gotham Asset Management LLC Trims Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Gotham Asset Management LLC lowered its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 26.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 66,817 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 23,420 shares during the period. Gotham Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $21,117,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $5,171,271,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Visa by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its position in Visa by 17,018.7% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after acquiring an additional 3,926,049 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in Visa by 18.0% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 18,260,714 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,771,116,000 after acquiring an additional 2,785,707 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on V. StockNews.com cut Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 16th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $362.38.

Visa Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $352.95 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $336.98 and a 200 day moving average price of $326.72. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $366.54. The firm has a market cap of $655.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $9.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.57 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. The business’s revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.51 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 13th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 13th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.72%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,575 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $345.58, for a total value of $889,868.50. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,121,041.50. This trade represents a 17.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total transaction of $12,875,320.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,642,333.60. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 121,948 shares of company stock valued at $41,548,282 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.