National Pension Service Sells 203,230 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

National Pension Service reduced its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 2,756,730 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 203,230 shares during the period. Visa makes up 0.8% of National Pension Service’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th biggest position. National Pension Service owned about 0.15% of Visa worth $871,237,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 48.5% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Visa Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $355.56 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $660.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.84, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $332.12 and a 200-day moving average price of $304.62. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $360.31.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the topic of several research reports. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price objective (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Mizuho upped their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

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.