First County Bank CT Lowers Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

First County Bank CT lessened its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 12.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,379 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 467 shares during the quarter. First County Bank CT’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,068,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Unionview LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 1.5% in the third quarter. Unionview LLC now owns 2,296 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $631,000 after buying an additional 33 shares during the period. FWG Holdings LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. FWG Holdings LLC now owns 3,168 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $900,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. St. Louis Trust Co boosted its position in Visa by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. St. Louis Trust Co now owns 3,885 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,068,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Menard Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Menard Financial Group LLC now owns 6,217 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,709,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC raised its position in Visa by 0.3% in the third quarter. KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC now owns 13,933 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,831,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Monness Crespi & Hardt restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Macquarie upped 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. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $329.70.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was 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 is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Down 0.3 %

NYSE V traded down $0.97 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $312.07. 3,001,038 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,762,601. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $321.61. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $310.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $286.01. The company has a market capitalization of $581.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.07, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued 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. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.33 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Visa Company 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.