Edgewood Management LLC Sells 954,453 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Edgewood Management LLC trimmed its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 11.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 7,185,334 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 954,453 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up approximately 5.3% of Edgewood Management LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 8th largest position. Edgewood Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,975,608,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. WFA Asset Management Corp boosted its position in Visa by 4.6% during the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 2,263 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $632,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the period. Guardian Capital LP boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.8% during the first quarter. Guardian Capital LP now owns 2,691 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $751,000 after purchasing an additional 147 shares during the period. Magnetar Financial LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the first quarter valued at approximately $3,609,000. Steel Grove Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in Visa by 12.8% during the first quarter. Steel Grove Capital Advisors LLC now owns 3,289 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $918,000 after purchasing an additional 372 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tremblant Capital Group increased its stake in Visa by 122.7% in the 1st quarter. Tremblant Capital Group now owns 4,612 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,287,000 after buying an additional 2,541 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of V stock opened at $310.23 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $289.07 and a 200-day moving average of $277.08. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $251.61 and a 52-week high of $312.44. The stock has a market cap of $565.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The trade was a 94.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently commented on V shares. Susquehanna upped their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho upped their target price on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Macquarie raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

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.