Ellsworth Advisors LLC Sells 20,093 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ellsworth Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 71.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 8,187 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 20,093 shares during the period. Ellsworth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,131,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Investment Advisory Services Inc. TX ADV boosted its stake in Visa by 2.0% in the third quarter. Investment Advisory Services Inc. TX ADV now owns 3,930 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $904,000 after acquiring an additional 78 shares during the last quarter. Camarda Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 3.0% during the second quarter. Camarda Financial Advisors LLC now owns 6,249 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,484,000 after acquiring an additional 182 shares during the period. Wayfinding Financial LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 10.1% during the third quarter. Wayfinding Financial LLC now owns 1,757 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $406,000 after acquiring an additional 161 shares during the period. Richelieu Gestion SA acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter worth $307,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC increased its stake in Visa by 5,907.4% in the 2nd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 221,012 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $52,486,000 after buying an additional 217,333 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Trading Up 0.0 %

Shares of NYSE:V traded up $0.06 on Friday, hitting $279.08. 5,844,358 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,182,342. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $279.11 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $258.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $512.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $216.14 and a 12 month high of $290.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.18 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Redburn Atlantic reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $307.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 26th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 29th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.82.

Visa 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.