GFS Advisors LLC Sells 94,906 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

GFS Advisors LLC lessened its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 94.9% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 5,094 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 94,906 shares during the period. GFS Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,401,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter. Fort Pitt Capital Group LLC now owns 6,612 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,818,000 after buying an additional 1,351 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC bought a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at approximately $227,342,000. Prossimo Advisors LLC raised its position in Visa by 1.4% during the third quarter. Prossimo Advisors LLC now owns 18,515 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,091,000 after purchasing an additional 248 shares in the last quarter. Campbell Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth $275,000. Finally, New Covenant Trust Company N.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 21.4% in the 3rd quarter. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. now owns 2,152 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $592,000 after purchasing an additional 380 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on V. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. BNP Paribas raised shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Compass Point assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price target on the stock. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $320.70.

Visa Stock Performance

V stock opened at $290.74 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $529.82 billion, a PE ratio of 29.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $281.00 and a 200-day moving average price of $273.66. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $239.20 and a 1-year high of $296.34.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.17 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.81%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 21.38%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $148,687.06. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.19% 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.