Hennessy Advisors Inc. Sells 1,000 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Hennessy Advisors Inc. trimmed its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 17.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 4,800 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,000 shares during the quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,517,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Benjamin Edwards Inc. raised its position in Visa by 3.7% in the 2nd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 4,236 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,112,000 after buying an additional 153 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Visa by 5.5% during the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 148,785 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,052,000 after purchasing an additional 7,807 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in Visa by 3.5% in the second quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 1,665,218 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $437,060,000 after purchasing an additional 57,034 shares during the last quarter. Blue Whale Capital LLP grew its position in Visa by 4.6% in the 2nd quarter. Blue Whale Capital LLP now owns 203,400 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $53,386,000 after purchasing an additional 8,900 shares during the period. Finally, Thames Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Visa by 3.2% during the 2nd quarter. Thames Capital Management LLC now owns 49,469 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,984,000 after buying an additional 1,548 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of a number of research reports. Barclays upped their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

V stock opened at $319.97 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $313.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $288.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. 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.