Eastover Investment Advisors LLC Sells 1,474 Shares of Visa Inc. $V

Eastover Investment Advisors LLC lessened its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 19,808 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,474 shares during the period. Visa makes up about 2.9% of Eastover Investment Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 20th largest position. Eastover Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $6,762,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of V. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in Visa by 1.8% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,241,348 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $438,196,000 after purchasing an additional 21,401 shares during the period. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,588 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $564,000 after purchasing an additional 111 shares during the last quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 5.9% during the 2nd quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 95,150 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,783,000 after buying an additional 5,295 shares during the period. Consilium Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at $862,000. Finally, Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC lifted its position in Visa by 5.9% in the first quarter. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC now owns 62,890 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $22,040,000 after buying an additional 3,484 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total transaction of $3,575,385.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $183,117. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total value of $707,919.96. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,608,789.09. The trade was a 7.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock valued at $8,175,152. 0.12% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have weighed in on V shares. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $408.00 price target (up from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 8th. Macquarie decreased their price objective on shares of Visa from $425.00 to $410.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $382.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $402.52.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $344.33 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $627.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.08 and a quick ratio of 1.08. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $299.00 and a 1 year high of $375.51. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $337.38 and a two-hundred day moving average of $344.89.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $10.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.60 billion. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th were issued a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 26.25%.

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.