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

Hennessy Advisors Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 17.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,800 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,000 shares during the quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,517,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Up 0.9 %

NYSE V opened at $319.97 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $321.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The business’s 50-day moving average is $313.41 and its 200 day moving average is $288.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during 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 firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Mizuho lifted their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

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.