Conning Inc. Reduces Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Conning Inc. lowered its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 28,284 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 80 shares during the period. Conning Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $7,364,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. GoalVest Advisory LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. GoalVest Advisory LLC now owns 1,217 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $317,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Destiny Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the 4th quarter. Destiny Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,668 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $433,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Sunflower Bank N.A. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.3% in the 4th quarter. Sunflower Bank N.A. now owns 3,143 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $818,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the period. HWG Holdings LP lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 18.4% in the 2nd quarter. HWG Holdings LP now owns 270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $64,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the period. Finally, Parker Financial LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. Parker Financial LLC now owns 925 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $241,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total transaction of $2,228,128.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total value of $2,228,128.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. KeyCorp lifted their price objective on Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. Finally, Wedbush lifted their price objective on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $296.87.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V opened at $271.28 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $216.14 and a one year high of $290.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $498.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.22, a PEG ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a fifty day moving average of $280.04 and a 200 day moving average of $262.19.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.18 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 EPS for the current 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 dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

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.